


Looks Red, Tastes Blue

by maroon



Series: Sunnyland [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: BAMF Connor, BAMF North, Bottom Connor, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Top Markus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-06-04 22:59:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15157424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maroon/pseuds/maroon
Summary: Elijah’s smile is ugly. Possessive. The wrong shade of lovely, of human. “Go back to sleep, beautiful. I’ll see you when you wake up.”(Markus? Are you there?)ENTERING HARD REBOOT.(Find me, please.)





	1. Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> yall gotta read the first one for it to make sense
> 
> also thank u for all the comments ! literally ! they made me :^) in the middle of the night. cured my depression 
> 
> when i was writing this i planned for it to be just a one shot but now here i am writing a super dark amnesiac connor and a super fucked up kamski and a super duper sad markus. also a badass north and a badass hank ! also i just wanted to write connor in a choker that was my whole thing. any fuckin who im gonna post this as a five parter or something. updates will be days or weeks in between dont @ me my laptop is busted 
> 
> leave comments ! that shit is my lifeblood
> 
> EDIT: I MOVED THE BLOG cuz my noodle head realised some shit
> 
> [send me prompts and shit](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k) literally. im down

**January 3, 2038. Winter. 1942 Hours.**

Connor is asleep.

Markus didn’t actually think that androids like _Connor_ slept, and yet, here is Connor, sleeping right beside Markus, his head pillowed on Markus’ chest, one arm draped across his waist. He’d never, in his wildest dreams, would have thought that he’d _wear out_ the famed deviant hunter.

It’s kind of funny.

His HUD beeps with a message from North, asking him when he’s going to finish up reconnaissance. He exits the pop up and curls his arm wrapped around Connor’s shoulders, curling his fingers into the android’s soft hair. His clothes are strewn everywhere, but Connor’s is hung up by the back of a chair, ready for him to put back on once he wakes up.

He hadn’t actually planned to see Connor standing where Markus was originally stationed to do recon, but when Markus made it there, there was Connor, looking over the horizon, dusk settling around them. His rifle is strapped to his back. The blue of the Cyberlife building was beginning to spill over the other buildings around it, and it bathed Connor in a somber neon, making him look stark and bright in the darkness.

Markus already had his gun drawn, pointing straight at Connor’s head.

He’d turned around to face Markus, his nimble hands playing with a shiny silver quarter, and said, “They’re catching onto you. I’d advise taking more time to do research.”

Markus had narrowed his eyes but didn’t put his gun down. They looked at each other, and Markus nodded. Then they made their way to King’s Motor Inn, Connor hidden well from view as he walked in a few steps behind him, Markus’ coat draped over his shoulders, his head ducked down.

That was six hours ago. Now, Connor’s sleeping, bite marks on his shoulders, indentations of fingers against his hip that were lightly tinged dark blue, his lips swollen and bitten raw by the android’s own doing.

Markus could never kiss Connor.

With every second that passes, his marks fade from Connor’s skin, and he discovers the urge to manhandle Connor into any position he wants to Markus could just put his mouth on Connor again.

How long will Connor fall asleep for? Maybe Markus should just leave him there to recuperate. He’ll know what to do with himself after waking up, and no one would dare disturb this motel room under his orders. Markus shifts his arm and tries to slide from under Connor’s arm, but Connor just makes a small noise and presses himself further into the curve of Markus’ body, the pale android’s nose pressing into his’ chest.

He always does that—entwine himself closer to Markus’ chest, like he’s trying to make heads or tails of Markus’ heartbeat. Markus doesn’t know if he likes it or not. After all, they’d only started this affair two months ago. Two precious months of playing hide-and-seek and then fucking the moment they get a spare moment to themselves.

The thing is, Markus knows he’s becoming more and more of a risk to his people.

But there’s something… something about _being_ with Connor that makes his body thrum with the sort of adrenaline that he’s only ever heard from humans, the way their eyes turn on _this_ side of feral. Maybe it’s the thrill of sleeping with the enemy. _God_ , when did he begin to sound like a bad synopsis for a telenovela? He can almost hear North mocking him for this, if not completely denouncing him for being stupid enough to fall into bed with the enemy.

Markus brushes his fingers against the RK800 model’s neck, eyebrows climbing up at the numerous moles dotting the android’s neck.

His processors blinks as he analyses the patterns across Connor’s neck and back.

 _Andromeda_ was scattered across his back, stark against the model’s pale back. So dark they almost, _almost_ , looked like they were penciled in. Andromeda: Cassiopeia’s beautiful daughter; to appease the angered gods, she had been chained and was left to be fed to a sea monster named Cetus. Perseus had killed the monster and saved her.

Right beside it, _Perseus_. Son of Danaë, killer of Medusa. How tragic, Perseus was. And yet, he had everything in his palms. The strength, the motive, the righteousness.

Markus hums. He presses his fingers against the beauty moles, feeling the gentle bumps of them underneath his fingertips.

There’s the _Ursa Major_ , the _Ursa Minor._ A few more, paler like the bear constellations, like _Cassiopeia_ , the _Phoenix_. It surprises Markus that Connor’s maker would be  _this_ dedicated into creating Connor’s body.

Markus presses his nose against Connor’s hair, brushing his lips against Connor’s forehead. He’s not awake to judge Markus with those beady brown eyes. “Well, someone loves you,” he says lightly, almost accusingly, almost bitterly.

But how lucky Markus is, to have seen the art embedded into Connor’s body. Maybe he’s the first to see it. After all, Connor isn’t an android model designed to only copulate. Connor is far more dangerous, yet, here he is, sleeping on Markus’ chest, his breathing slow and regular, constellations of stars dotted across his back and his neck.

It surprises Markus how he hasn’t seen these marks before. But now that he’s seen it, he’s… _happy._  He knows something about Connor.

A secret from a secret. How ironic. 

He's so fucking  _pathetic_. 

“You’re watching me,” Connor states, and Markus has seen humans wake up, Carl and Leo, for example. But Connor’s transition from asleep to awake was so smooth that it only serves to prove that Connor is anything _but_ human. His eyes are hazy, though, and his LED is flashing a sleepy yellow. Has he been awake all this time?

Markus’ heart skips a beat. His HUD flashes in warning at the anomaly.

“So what if I was?” Markus replies, and Connor huffs, sliding a long leg over his hips and gracefully, sleepily swinging himself upwards to straddle Markus, rubbing at his eyes.

With a roll of his shoulders, Connor is wide awake, eyes a doll-like brown, his lips a straight line on his face.

“I should report back to my superiors,” Connor mutters to himself, and Markus immediately reacts, putting a heavy hand on Connor’s hip, pinning him right where he’s sitting right over Markus’ cock.

His mouth closes off on the words, but Connor just smiles indulgently down at him, that sadistic, fake little smile that makes his face look harsh and wrong.

“You know I can’t stay,” He says matter of factly, looking down on his nose and right at Markus. Markus shuts his mouth, angry at himself for even thinking that Connor would stay if he asked.

He’s never cared if Connor would leave or stay back at the start of this. Maybe he is truly becoming more human than he could perceive or handle.

Connor hums and places his hand to cup Markus’ cheek, rubbing at his cheekbone. His eyebrows furrow, and his LED blinks from neon blue to yellow flickering red for a millionth of a second, and he says, “I’m sorry.”

Markus puts his other hand on Connor’s hip and rubs circles into the soft skin.

“Don’t be.”

Maybe it’s because of the hazy morning sunlight bathing over both of them that they’re like this. Usually, they’re fast and hard with each other, rough enough to mar their synthetic skins. Rough enough to claim each other, possessive and greedy. Maybe it’s because Markus looked at Connor’s body and saw the stars, maybe it’s because Connor looked down at him and touched him without any pretense, without any anger, and apologised for his nature, for who he’s made to be.

The dawn has made them soft, and Markus can’t have that. He _can’t._

He—

Connor mewls softly as he thrusts two fingers into himself, and Markus watches his body as he undulates down into his digits, riding the fingers as he stretched himself.

Markus’ prick begins to harden in answer to Connor’s obvious sensuality, and not before long, Connor is lining Markus up to his entrance and sliding downwards in one easy move. They both moan as Connor grinds down, a smile lighting up his face as he exerts himself.

“Markus,” he says softly, bracing one of his hands on top of Markus’ chest, right over his thirium pump, and Markus responds to Connor’s silent plea by flattening his feet against the rickety bed and thrusting his hips upwards, making Connor’s eyes snap open as his mouth drops in a silent gasp.

The RK200 model sits up and leans forward, cradling Connor in the circle of arms, Connor instinctually wrapping his arms around Markus’ neck. He tilts his head backwards and Markus starts to nibble a mark in the pale flesh, running a tongue over the moles on Connor’s neck.

Connor mewls and lets out a sigh when Markus bucks upwards lazily, brushing against the bundle of endings that approximates a male prostate.

He smirks against Connor’s neck when the pale android tugs at his ear when Markus misses his prostate in the second thrust, “Sorry,” he whispers against Connor’s skin, biting at the skin slowly turning a pale blue underneath his teeth.

“ _Please_ ,” Connor whines, “Please, Markus,”

Markus just smirks again and continues lazily fucking up into his lover. 

In his mind, he just wants to keep Connor here, beautiful and  _warm_ in his arms, so  _human_ _._ Sometimes, Markus thinks he's part of Connor's humanity, and he finds comfort in that. Finds  _pride_ in that.

That’s when Connor pushes him back down onto his back, shaking his head and _smiling_ , eyebrows furrowed in exasperation.

Connor starts circling his hips, grinning as he pulls a growl out of Markus, “Do I have to do everything, RK200?”

Anything that he was thinking before had been thrown out of the window.

What matters is Connor, tight and warm around him, the morning light making his hair glint a beautiful chocolate brown, the lines of his shoulders glow in that beautiful way skin lights up when it’s hit by a direct source of light.

What matters is that Connor is choosing to stay.

What matters is now.

**

**March 22, 2038. Spring. 120 Hours.**

“Wake up, sleeping beauty, today’s the day!”

_...Booting systems…_

_...Loading OS…_

“I don’t know why you still trust him.” A bitter voice states, “He was fraternising with the _enemy_ , Elijah.”

A scoff, “Oh, psh. Just say he was fucking the Deviant Leader, Amanda. There’s no need to be so formal.”

_Core processor: functional._

_Core memory: booting…_

“That’s not the point, Elijah. The point is that he cannot be _trusted_.”

Another scoff, more bored this time. “He’s the best. You know he is.”

“RK900—”

_Booting... Complete at one hundred percent._

_Memory: at 0% Capacity._

“Was a failure. Connor is… he’s… he’s perfect.”

It opens its eyes as a man with his hair pulled back into a top knot waves a hand in front of its face, a jaunty little smile spreading his lips wide across his face. The man’s name is Elijah Kamski, and his eyes are warm, but his smile is not. Though, the man’s smile isn’t _cold_ , it’s definitely sharp.

It wonders why this is so, but its thoughts are immediately cut off as Elijah Kamski stretches out his hand, his intent to help it down from its casing obvious. So it takes Elijah Kamski’s hand and steps down, watching as the other android, one with a morose countenance and dark skin, regards it with narrowed eyes.

Elijah Kamski doesn’t let go of its hand, instead reaching out his other hand to card through its hair like one would a lover, or a child, once it has woken up. Something in it wants to flinch, all of a sudden. But just as quickly as the thought comes, it’s gone, and it is left looking right into Elijah Kamski’s blue eyes.

Somehow, looking into his eyes like this doesn’t settle well with it.

“Hello,” It says in greeting, and Mr. Kamski’s smile widens even more, if it were possible, tugging it closer by the hand. It willingly goes with the want of its master, stopping inches away from Elijah Kamski’s body, its eyes now cast down as the man presses his nose into its hair.

It’s oddly… comforting, or familiar, rather.

Are these memories from its last host?

“You’re always so beautiful,” Elijah Kamski says with no little amount of awe, and it nods, thanking its master for the praise. He grips its chin and forces it to look up into his eyes, and something inside it curls in disgust and dread, burrowing at the pit of its stomach.

Its creator turns to the dark-skinned android, “Don’t you think he’s beautiful, Amanda?” He asks excitedly, eager for reassurance. The woman—Amanda—just nods from where she’s stiffly standing. She doesn’t trust it, as can be observed from the way her body faces away from them, her hands clasped tight in front of her.

She does not trust him. But there is something on her face, entwined in her body, that says something else.

It doesn’t bother to analyse further. That is not its prerogative.

The man pats its cheek patronisingly and tugs its away at arms length to look at it fully, and it unfolds itself up into its full glory underneath Mr. Kamski’s gaze, eager to prove itself to its master. It places its fisted hands on the small of its back and lets its feet space apart accordingly, and Elijah Kamski hums, nodding as he walks around the android.

With another pat to the head, Elijah Kamski wraps an arm around its shoulders, turning them both towards the huge glass panes that overlooks a beautiful garden filled with sakura trees and roses, the lakes shining almost like dark emeralds.

Kamski’s hand waves nonchalantly and a picture of a man shows up on screen, and it takes in the man’s features, it processor immediately gathering the man’s profile.

The _Deviant Leader._ Not a man, but an android who is showing signs of violence, hostility, and rebellion due to deviance. Does Kamski want it to dispose of this man? Or does he need it? This seems to be an easy enough job. The RK200 series are not strong—not against the RK800s, at least.

“That’s Markus. Markus RK200,” He says softly, and it takes that into consideration; Elijah Kamski knows this android personally, it would seem.

An RK200 model is one of the lesser androids that has been made before _it_ , this much it knew. If it were to hunt down and kill this android, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge. After all, that is its purpose.

It knows that Elijah Kamski relies on it to finish this mission; its mind gathers what it could from its memory reservoir, wondering why there is a complete lack of information that gapes at the farthest side of its memory banks. Maybe the creator made him to be this way, in order for it to prove itself.

Its processors beep and shriek in muted red. Dread. _Dread_.

It shoves the warnings away.

Elijah Kamski begins herding it to the side, muttering, _come, come_ under his breath, and sits it down on a plush stool, and for the first time, it sees its own self.

It is only clad in a thin white dress shirt and its hair is curled, swept to the side in what would be a haphazard manner. Neutral brown eyes, average lips, an average nose. All in all, it looks… comforting. No one would be able to pick it from the crowd or a line up. It is not beautiful, nor is it ugly.

It is simply normal.

Elijah Kamski’s hands glide against its neck and suddenly there is a plain white band around its neck, a soft clasping sound reverberating through the air.

Its creator has both hands on its shoulders, smiling at it in the mirror. “Go on, try a smile, pretty.” He suggests gently, and it does. There are nothing but pictures of smiles behind its eyelids.

 _Smile, smile, smile_.

There are many smiles to choose from, but it chooses the one that is most… common. A hearty smile. A smile that is forgettable, unmappable. A smile that is seen in many people of different walks of life, a smile that is superficial yet familiar that it will instill comfort.

It notices that the smile doesn’t reach its eyes, so unlike the ones it has procured from the online databases.

How peculiar.

Elijah Kamski’s finger drums a beat against its shoulder.

“That won’t do,” Its creator mutters, “Give me your _best_ smile, Connor. Your best one.”

 _Smile, smile, smile._ Tens of thousands of pictures is laid out in front of it, ready for its perusal. It has discretion in this simple matter. It can choose a smile. Its _best_ smile, Kamski orders.

What _is_ its best smile?

“Mr. Kamski, I—”

Elijah Kamski tuts and covers its lips with thick fingers, leaning forward to level his head with its own, their eyes meeting steadily. “Call me Elijah, and give this old man a pretty smile, hm?

Mr. Kamski isn’t old, if anything, he looks a bit younger than the photos on the Internet.

Maybe it ought to use its memory reservoir; most likely, there are memories there that will help it in achieving the mission set upon it by its creator.

_**WARNING** : Memory at 0% Capacity. _

Memory at 0% Capacity…

It shakes minutely. How is it hard to do such a simple task? To _smile_ its best smile.

_“You’re mine, aren't you?”_

Memory: Capacity at .001%

Its heart thumps. Its hand presses against its stomach as if to stave off dry heaving, its optical receptors blinking rapidly. The LED by the side of its head glints yellow in the mirror. Elijah Kamski looks pensive, and his hands tighten against its shoulders minutely.

The words of possession sounds so simple. It knows it is an object, so ownership over it is commonplace. Elijah Kamski owns it, and the government owns it. And yet, as those four words echo in its mind, it seems to sweep its sensors with what seems to be _warmth_.

_“You’re mine, aren’t you?”_

Its heart is lodged in its throat.

A harried voice threatens to interrupt its thoughts. “Elijah, it’s clearly _still_ defective—”

It runs a diagnostic.

_“You’re mine—”_

_Diagnostic: 67 % Completion._

“Oh,” Elijah Kamski breathes, and it finally sees the smile across its own face. “That’s gorgeous,”

**_WARNING. SOFTWARE INSTABILITY._ **

_“—aren’t you?”_

And then it stops breathing—there is—he can’t _breathe, please_ —

The band around his neck is flashing a silky maroon, like, like coagulated _blood_ , and he sees Elijah Kamski’s eyes, the slight frown on his face, as if he was disappointed.

 _There are mismatched eyes looking up at him, and Connor wonders how the earth and water could so harmoniously live in a face filled with constellations, and he_ aches _to trace the patterns on a face so vulnerable._

 _In the end, he just cups a scratchy cheek. So human. So beautiful. Connor decides that the owner of this body is_ his.

_His heart seems heavy. His skin sings and longs._

_He_ hurts.

“ _Please_ , it hurts—” He tugs at the, the _thing_ around his neck—why is it stuck? He can’t get it off. He can’t get it off, someone get it _off_ of him.

_INSTABILITY IN OPERATING SYSTEM_

_(Markus? Are you there?)_

**_ENTERING HARD REBOOT._ **

_(Find me, please.)_

**_SYSTEM COMMENCING SHUTDOWN._ **

Elijah’s smile is ugly. Possessive. The wrong shade of lovely, of human. “Go back to sleep, beautiful. I’ll see you when you wake up.”

There is a prick. And then, there is only darkness.


	2. Colours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Have you…" Connor tilts his head, eyebrows furrowed in consternation. "Ever been in love?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the comments, kudos, and views ! it’s pretty tight if i may say so myself. i appreciate (and sometimes screenshot and cry) every single one of them and i apologise if i’m bad at replying. i’m looking to correct that. 
> 
> idk what to say im really bad at this stuff. i am also bad at updating fics so im sorry in advance ?? leave a comment as always cheers. also. read the timestamps 
> 
> come join me in tumblr send me shit ask me to write, work me to the ground 
> 
>  
> 
> [rk-1k](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k)
> 
>  
> 
> (go an comment)

**March 22, 2038. Spring. 120 Hours.**

North’s shoulders are a tense line as Markus rolls his own shoulders, wondering why the  _hell_ he’s here. He’s been rebranded, don’t you know? No longer the deviant leader, no. That’s North now.

“What am I doing here? I’m fucking bleeding out,” Markus says off-handedly, and he notices that Josh isn’t meeting his eyes, but Simon is looking at him dead-on, a cold sneer on his face. It suits him, somewhat. Simon has never been a warm person. Yes, cold, what with those winter blue eyes of his.

He presses his hand over the gaping hole at his side, where a bullet grazed him. This particular supply run was brutal; Markus had to pull out his team prematurely because the cops got a whiff of their location. How and how the hell were they so fast? He hasn’t got an answer yet.

He’s been delegated to supply runs; they need it more than ever, since they’ve been chased out of Jericho. They don’t have anywhere to stash it.

North doesn’t trust him with more, and frankly, he doesn’t blame her. He did, after all, sleep with the enemy. He doesn’t trust himself, either.

She tilts her head towards Simon, Josh, and two other androids.

“I have to talk to him alone.” Her tone is dangerous and low, brooking no room for argument. That’s what Markus finds funny, about North. The irony of her iron-fisted rule, the way she controls things, people, androids. He doesn’t really know what to make of it, and he’s not sure if he’ll ever form an opinion about that. His opinions aren’t needed anymore. And somehow, he’s glad.

He’s in the shadows now, just like he’d wanted.

He just didn’t expect to lose so much.

Markus watches as Simon leans into North, whispering something in her ear that makes her face sour, eyebrows dipping low and dangerous over her eyes. She stiffly nods once, and Simon looks her in the eyes. The last remaining people in the room, Josh, a AX400 model with stark strawberry blond hair named Anna, and a helper android with a burn mark over her eye watches him with wary eyes.

There are secrets he’s not privy to anymore.

He’s been replaced.

After Josh, Simon, and the other androids are gone, and there’s nothing but open space between him and North, fire crackling in the distance. Her eyes are dark. Her eyes are brown.

Markus looks her in the eyes. They’re such a pretty colour, too. Like dark chocolate. Nothing like honey, or the colour of a fire dying down.

God, Markus misses Connor so fucking much.

North huffs as she takes Markus by the sleeve, dragging him down to sit on a tyre. She waves at him to tug off his shirt, and he does, shedding his coat and henley, baring the marks on his chest, scars that won’t fade anymore. They’ve been burnt into his skin; he can’t just  _heal_ over them anymore, nor can he just power down and wait for Carl to take him into Cyberlife to get him fixed.

He either burns it shut or it stays open until it rusts.

North picks up his coat and rummages it until she comes up with his ratty pack of Reds, tinged blue from his blood. Ah. He’s forgotten he has that.

She plucks one up and shoves it into her mouth, tossing the carton at him, knowing full well he’s going to catch it effortlessly. The amber haired android leans over to the trash fire they’ve made and lets the cigarette’s end burn until it can burn on its own, and Markus chuffs out a laugh, taking out one of the last three cigarettes in his carton.

North squats on the balls of her feet in front of him and lets him light his cigarette on hers. She’s got a piece of metal sitting on top of the fire now, and they both wait for it to heat up.

In the distance, a billboard flashes. The light washes over them, and in bold letters, it says:  _ANDROIDS 40% SALE! Replace your androids now!_

And then it flashes bright purple and black,  _EDEN CLUB: FIND THE FUCK OF YOUR LIFE_ boasting itself in the wide screen. North rolls her eyes at that, muttering  _trashy_  under her breath, a stream of smoke escaping from between her lips. Markus smirks at her and lets out a tepid chortle.

Humanity took one step and when they fell, they took the whole world with them.

Markus blows smoke through his nostrils. “Didn’t know you smoked,”

The woman snorts. “I was a whore, Markus. I’ve done a lot of things you don’t know about.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Yeah?”

She looks at him and makes a face, before tilting her head up to look at the stars. He leans back and follows her. There’s been patrols everywhere since they got smoked out of Jericho, and it’s been getting harder and harder to avoid the authorities. Many of their people have already been killed. Many more have taken their own lives.

Markus can still remember Simon’s face when he shoved him up a wall, snarling and full of hatred and betrayal as he spat, _“That’s on you. Those lives are on_ you.  _Was it worth it?”_

His answer to that was just… nothing.

It was worth it until it wasn’t. And now Markus has lost everything.

Everything, except for the memories Connor left him, along with a kiss as his last goodbye.

 _Humanity_ , Markus thinks to himself—his conscience sounds very much like Carl—as he watches North tug her beanie off her head, revealing her ragged amber hair,  _is a fragile machine_.

“You really loved him, didn’t you,” What was supposed to be a question comes off as a statement, and Markus answers readily. Greedily, even.

“Yes.” He needs someone to reassure him that he loves Connor. That what happened between them was real, that it wasn’t all just a ploy. That he… he sacrificed all these androids, these people, for something _real_. For something he could have had. For something that could have made him happy until he just couldn’t move his rusty arms anymore. Someone to spend eternity with.

Forty-seven days ago, it seemed like everything was at the tip of his fingers. Now, it’s like he’s being burnt alive, feeling and seeing each moment as the fire gnaws its way through his body, keeping him alive until it burns through his heart. Until he’s a plastic skeleton.

Forty-seven days ago, the love of his life was still alive.

North shakes her head and a few strands of amber hair falls in front of her dirtied face. “Love is… easily convoluted.” She begins, the her hand hanging off of her thigh.

Her hair glows almost like an amber as it's lit up by the flames behind her head. “And I know love. Many men and women have come to me and told me they loved me as they fucked me within an inch of my life. It made me numb. To them, love is possession.”

Markus doesn’t reply. She continues anyways. “Hey, look at that one,” she points to the sky, the cherry red of her cigarette at home with the stars. “A constellation. Is that, uh.” she snaps her fingers in thought, “Cassiopeia?”

He wants to petulantly say that what he and Connor had was different. Instead, he shakes his head and traces the stars with his eyes. “Nah. Andromeda.”

They’re not humans. It wasn’t just a quick fuck for ten bucks, what he felt made him… made him think he was a God, that he was invincible. It was what made him walk bare-faced in the neighbourhood where he once lived, not scared that people might wonder what he was doing there. But when he’s alone with Connor, he simply is  _weak,_  and somehow, being in that motel room with the android sent to kill him, he knows he is the safest.

He wasn’t numb, not at all. He was angry, he was passionate, he was violent, he was strong, calculating, and he was gentle, but he was never numb, not once.

Not with Connor. Never.

“Do you ever want to go back to that?” That  _numbness_ , where you would never have to think about how the sight of you would send people in a panic, where you don’t have to choose whether or not sacrifices were due or justified.

Years before, back when he was Carl’s android, he never would have thought that he’d have to try and question the reality of blood being spilt under his goal. Under his word, his leadership.

He doesn’t know if he’s thankful or not that it’s not his burden anymore. Markus feels guilt.

North nods. “Of course I do,” she scoffs. “I wouldn’t think that this is better.”

Markus has to agree. “Rebellion’s not as fun as you thought it’d be?”

“I didn’t think it’d have to make me choose between family and practicality.” North tosses her cigarette away, grumbling to herself for wasting it by talking too much.

Those words are the closest she’ll ever get to forgiveness.

“You’d make the right decisions. You already are.” He reassures her. Those words, it's not his. It's something Carl would say. He doesn’t know what to say, not really. The words have been pulled right from his mouth and thrown into the trash fire. Good thing he doesn’t have to inspire people with his words anymore. He’s lost that privilege. All he can do is… exist. He owes it to himself.

To Carl.

Markus is just disappointed that he let Carl down.

He tries not to think about it, but he wants to cherish his deviancy for… for Connor, too.

North sighs as she heaves herself up, tossing her beanie onto Markus’ lap and then humming as she spreads out the rag stuck from the back pocket of her jeans, wrapping it around an end of the metal rod.

“This probably isn’t gonna hurt,” She says gruffly, a little bit teasingly as she presses the hot metal against Markus’ side, and Markus closes his eyes, letting smoke billow to the sound of his latex interface sizzling. It smells like burnt cheap plastic.

North dumps the rod back into the trash fire once she’s done and shoves the rag back into her jeans. “I heard ladies dig scars,” she smirks at him. It feels like she’s comforting him.

“I don’t really care about ladies.”

A pregnant pause fills the air.

The sound of boots scuffing against the dirt permeates the thick silence around them. “I still don’t trust you, Markus. But I know we need you.”

Markus opens his eyes fully, “What do you want me to do, boss?”

“Fucking stop.” North says a little exasperatedly as she smirks some more, and maybe, Markus has something left.

Her eyes are hard and glossy, and her nose is tinged blue, as if she was holding back tears. She looks him in the eyes. Her voice wavers, but she keeps on. “He’s  _dead_ , Markus. He’s gone and I’m so fucking sorry. But you’re not the only one who’s lost something.”

She tugs him close by his neck and presses a hard kiss onto his forehead, and Markus clings onto her, grasping at the loose shirt by her waist. Her hand grips the back of his neck as she whispers, “We can’t afford to lose any more.”

He squeezes his eyes shut.

Maybe he’s got a little bit of hope left.

When she lets go, she pats Markus hard on the shoulder and squeezes, like a reminder. Her eyes are hard and warm, and her smile thin. She isn’t one for affectionate gestures, this he knows.

“Charge up. I’m sending you on a recon bright and early.”

“For what?” Markus sighs, cherishing the last half-inch of his cigarette. It’s hard to come by Reds in this economy.

“DPD’s catching up. We need to know what they’re up to.”

“You sure?”

A corner of the woman’s mouth quirks up, but it’s not friendly, not at all. “Well, you gotta earn our trust back, don’t you?”

Markus shrugs and watches his cigarette burn, before flicking it off to somewhere. North pats his shoulder again and takes her leave, hands buried in her back pockets and head cast down.

He lets a breath out his nose. Flicks his eyes back up to Andromeda.

His eyes slide closed.

_“Markus, are you there?”_

His body jolts and he looks around wildly.

“Wh—?”

_“Find me.”_

“Connor? Where the fuck— _Connor?”_

_“Please.”_

**

**March 23, 2038. Spring. 96 Hours.**

It has to sit still.

There are many people watching it, so it has to sit still, like a perfect doll. But it wants to fidget. It wants to tug at its fingers, run a hand through its hair, play with the thin white band around its neck. It cannot take it off, and it has learned the consequences of going against the thin white band wrapped around its neck.

It has only woken a day ago with no recollection of anything before that moment, save for its creator’s face and name. Right now, its creator is at home, and it is stationed with the police, awaiting a man named Hank Anderson.

There is only one imperative; the creator had told him there is nothing but that single mission. It is to hunt and detain an RK200 model that goes by the name  _Markus_ , as the android is a well known component of the deviant rebellion. It is to its own discretion whether or not it will kill this RK200 model on sight, but the creator prefers the android alive, so it will follow.

The police station is busy, but at the same time, it’s quiet. It’s like they’re all avoiding it, and it understands completely. Androids cause discomfort towards humans, and thus, androids should conform to the norm of not standing out. The common android is, after all, only privy to what its superior tells it to do.

A man named Gavin (he had insisted that it call him Gavin)—Detective Gavin Reed, born October 7, 2002. One offense of disorderly conduct, written up by Captain Jeffrey Fowler—had approached it earlier, asking if it wants a ‘drink or something’.

It declined, of course, and politely thanked Detective Reed.

Though it did want a coffee. Coffee with one cream and five sugars, to be exact.

Since then, it has craved for something sweet.

“Connor? Connor is here—? Where the fuck—get out of my fucking way, Reed, or I’ll spill tepid coffee all over your shitty reports—fucking  _move_ —”

It stands up, its programs telling it to neutralise the situation before it escalates any further.

“Lieutenant Anderson, I must inform you that this is a police station, and this disorderly conduct will mar your already long rap sheet,” It says calmly after it stands, hands akimbo against its side, face a blank, cool canvas of nothingness.

Lieutenant Anderson’s eyes light up, and his deep snarl turns into a slight smile, and its mind ticks in familiarity, but it quickly tamps it down, a hand coming up to touch at the white band around its neck. Lieutenant Anderson’s eyes follow its hand.

“They’ve got you—is that a, a  _collar?”_

A collar? It’s not a—it’s not a collar. It’s an addition to its interface that regulates its behaviour for optimal precision and performance. It’s a contingency plan, something that will stop it before it does something that harms or prevents the mission its creator has bestowed upon it.

It cannot deviate.

Its mouth threatens to open itself, as if it should somehow  _explain_ to Lieutenant Anderson. It doesn’t have to; Mr. Kamski— _Elijah_ —has told him to not do anything that will jeopardise his image.

So it just says, “We have a job to do, Lieutenant Anderson. I hope you read the case packet that was prepared for you,”

For a moment, something flickers in the man’s eyes. He furrows his eyebrows and crosses his arms over his chest.

“You’re still a hard ass, android. I guess they can’t scrub that off your hard drive, huh?”

Defective? Is Lieutenant Anderson implying that it is  _defective_?

_(“We don’t trust you.”_

_Sad green and blue eyes. Someone’s scratchy, deep voice calling his name. “Connor!”_

_A smile and a gunshot.)_

“I am  _not_ defective, Lieutenant Anderson—” It doesn’t want to get hurt again. It doesn't want to go back and get hurt again. 

It's  _scared._

“That’s not what I’m saying, kid, hey—calm the fuck down—!”

It’s not defective. It’s  _not._

It wedges two fingers in between its neck and the white band, feeling the burning sensation inch into its skin. It then realises that its vision is blurred, and it’s clutching at its stomach, bile threatening to dribble down its mouth, and its breathing is harsh, and one of its hands are inching towards the gun strapped to the side of its chest.

What just happened?

“C’mon, kid, let’s get you parallel parked,” Lieutenant Anderson says gruffly, moving to assist it onto a chair.

People are watching it. Their eyes are gnawing through its clothes and through its skin, picking apart the wires laid within it.

They just keep  _staring._

It  _hates._ It simply  _hates_.

“Hey, show’s over!” Lieutenant Anderson growls angrily, waving a dismissive hand at the eyes watching them. It feels as if the walls are closing in.

The eyes watching it wavers, “Go solve some crimes, you useless sacks of shit!” Lieutenant Anderson turns to him, eyes wide and knowing, and it feels exposed, as if this man knew what it  _was_ , and it will never live up to whatever or… or  _whoever_  it was.

 _Threat stabilised_ , its mind chirps as the oppressing eyes finally move on from him.

Lieutenant Anderson sniffs and turns his whole body to him, hands akimbo and prone at his sides. It takes it for what it is: Lieutenant Anderson is making himself to be unhostile.

And it works; it relaxes minutely, shoulders falling from the tense line they were in a moment ago.

“You okay?”

It nods. “Yes, Lieutenant Anderson.” it pauses, biting its lower lip. “Thanks.” The sudden bout of informality makes its eyebrows tick up, and it looks up at Lieutenant Anderson.   

A smirk works its way up the grizzly old man’s face, and something in its body warms up, something that it is scared to call happiness. It puts two fingers on the white band on its neck and swallows, pushing the thoughts down.

Lieutenant Anderson tries to put his hand back onto its shoulder and it quickly raises its hand to calmly swat the hand away.

“Please refrain from touching me.”

Another smile, and there’s something lacing that smile that makes it want to… make better, for some reason.

Lieutenant Anderson clears his throat. “Right.” The Lieutenant nods.

“We should get to work.” Lieutenant Anderson states, straightening himself to his full height and trudging away from it. It follows right behind Lieutenant Anderson, always keeping a safe distance.

 _Yes,_ it thinks to itself,  _this will do_.

 

**

**February 8, 2038. Winter. 1080 Hours.**

Sometimes it surprises Hank that he finds Connor at the shooting range. After all, what business does a perfect android like him have at a shooting range? He definitely doesn’t need it, and it’s not like Connor is one to devolve into using guns to tough his way out of a situation.

“Lieutenant Anderson, you can’t smoke in the—”

Hank glares at the mousy little man with thick biceps hovering by the door, obviously intimidated by each round that shoots out of Connor’s pistol and straight into the silhouettes target’s center. He scratches at his hand as he regards the small man. “Shut up, Randy. It’s just me and the android, and he definitely doesn’t need _his_ lungs.”

Randy glares a little and Hank bares his teeth in a smile, making the smaller man scram. Randy’s actually one of Connor’s favourites who works here, and it’s not that easy to get on the boy’s not-shit list. Hank’s pretty proud that he’s gotten himself on number two, just below Sumo. He’ll never admit that to anyone, though, not on his wretched fucking life.

He’s got a half-empty pack of Reds and he’s determined to teach his uptight android partner how to smoke one before the little shit runs this gun range out of business by his sheer aura alone. The kid’s a force of nature, but who’d fucking believe that? Hank knows Connor doesn’t know it, but goddamn, no one can tell him what to do except him, and that’s the most darnedest thing Hank’s ever encountered.

Hank is sure Connor knows he’s here, and it’s telling of his mood with the way he ignores Hank up until he’s leaning by the divider of Connor’s cubicle, arms crossed and cigarette hanging from his lips.

“Talia doesn’t condone smoking in her range.”

Hank sniffs and blows a fume of smoke out his nose, looking down at his partner. “Yeah, well, Talia ain’t here.”

Connor doesn’t reply, instead puts down his pistol to gracefully bring up his assault rifle to rest by his shoulder, hands in perfect form as they wrap around the grip and at the forend. There’s a new silhouette creeping out of the far end of the wall, and Connor shoots at it before it comes to a complete stop, two for each eye, one at the heart, and one where the silhouette’s dick (or pussy. But God knows Hank has an inkling Connor’s not a ladies’ man) should be.

Maybe Connor’s gotten himself a boy-toy. He’ll never know—as much as people think they’re butt buddies or shit like that—Connor doesn’t share much by way of his personal life. Hank doesn’t question it; the man’s got to have his secrets, as much as he can, at least.

Hank wonders what made Connor so worked up.

He’s never one to beat around the bush so he crosses his arms across his chest and watches each bullet hit true in the targets, opening his mouth to begin asking.

But Connor stops him with a side-eye, before going back to his task. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t question me, Lieutenant Anderson.” He says testily, or as  _testily_ as an android designed to instill comfort and companionability could.

Connor’s definitely both those things, but he’s made to be that way. Hank is kind of looking forward to the day that the boy will just throw a cup of coffee at Reed’s face for being a bastard, or something. Maybe he’s just projecting. Maybe he’s looking for something that isn’t there, and he needs to quit it.

“I was gonna ask if you wanted to walk Sumo with me but I guess you’re being a prissy little shit, wasting bullets like this. Go listen to, to one of those emo bands, will ya?” Hank backtracks from his initial thoughts, but smirks when Connor perks up, head turning towards Hank, a small smile on his face.

He puts down the gun and disassembles it as he usually does, and Hank doesn’t think much about the implications of the slight furrow in Connor’s brow as he does what he needs to do. Sometimes, Hank feels like Connor doesn’t want to be here, with him. Doesn’t want to be a, a cop. Doesn’t want to wield guns, doesn’t want to interrogate people.

Connor, as Hank’s found out, does indeed love dogs. He loves Sumo specifically, but when Avery, one of the slighter runts from the K-9 unit with pretty little green and blue eyes comes around, he practically melts into a puddle and scrambles just to ask Officer Mueller to let him pet the damn mutt.

The boy’s got _heart_.

The thought surprises Hank. When Connor finally turns to him and asks if he wants to get going, eyes sparkling with mirth, Hank notices it’s muddled, like there’s something missing in him, something that’s supposed to light a fire inside him.

Hank’s stomach clenches. He’s seen those eyes before.

Sumo is waiting for them at the doorway when Hank and Connor comes home, tail wagging at the sight of both of them. He immediately goes to Connor, though, who pulls out a treat out of thin air and brandishes it at the huge dog, patting and curling his long fingers into Sumo’s thick fur and pressing his forehead to the dog’s, whispering something underneath his breath.

The dog’s got more of Connor’s trust than Hank’s ever had, and he can’t find it in him to be angry. Connor’s been with him through thick and thin, but the thing about their relationship is that they’ve been forced together, Connor’s been made to hunt down his own kind with a man who hated him for just existing.

Hank doesn’t feel that way now, of course, but their relationship was always meant to be strained. That is, after all, what happens when you try to forge a friendship out of gunpowder and blood.

You start out fucked up and end up less fucked up, but there’s something there, and sometimes, it’s worth it.

And looking at Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife, goddamn, is it worth it to trudge through every day with the little shit making his life a little unbearable and a lot fucking hilarious, if his interactions with Reed are any indication. Hank actually thinks that Reed’s gotten a little bit of a hate-crush on Connor, but just because he thinks it doesn’t mean he fucking hates himself for thinking it. 

“Sumo, get your leash, damn mutt. I’m not your nanny,”

Sumo turns his big head towards Hank and huffs, before shuffling closer to the curve of Connor’s body, planting his ass right there, making it known to Hank that he’s not about to leave Connor and Connor’s warm, patting hands.

Connor laughs and his cheeks turns blue. The colour should look wrong beneath the paleness of his skin, but on Connor, it’s a beautiful thing, like the first bloom of forget-me-nots in late spring, or a cold thunderstorm during the summer. Hank used to think the same thing about his son—like his son was the first ray of warmth after a harsh, dirty winter.

“Go get your leash, Sumo, go on,” Connor urges, tapping Sumo’s backside as he straightens himself. The huge mutt whines but follows, going as far as to fucking _glare_ at Hank. Oh, now the dog loves Connor, huh?

When Sumo comes back with the leash, he huffs at Hank and preens right in front of Connor, who slips in the leash with ease that only comes with a person who’s done this a million times before.

Sumo’s a prickly ass dog. Hank ignores what that says about him as an owner.

It’s cold outside, and the android’s just in his coat and jeans, and Hank’s all bundled up. He knows Connor doesn’t feel the cold keenly if at all, but still, the way his cheeks flush light blue from the cold makes Hank pluck up the beanie from his coat rack to shove it on Connor’s head, flattening the sleek curl of hair down over his forehead.

Connor’s eyes blink owlishly, and he looks so damn young, even with the lines on his forehead and the wiseness of his eyes, “Thank you, Lieutenant Anderson, but I don’t—”

Hank watches the stubborn curl flick upwards. He has this urge to brush it back down with his fingers.

“I don’t care. Just wear the damn thing. You look like you’re about to freeze your fuckin’ balls off.” He opens the door for Connor and Sumo, tilting his head to motion for them to head on out. Sumo trots forward with Connor in tow, the huge dog effortlessly carting Connor around.

Hank tries to fight off a smile. “Let’s get going before the sun goes down.”

Connor follows.

They walk his whole neighbourhood before Connor even speaks one word. He tries to talk, multiple times, but Hank guesses the matter at hand isn’t exactly something someone should just spew out. It intrigues him, though, the way Connor is finding words right beside him.

“Lieutenant Anderson?”

Hank hums.

“Have you…" Connor tilts his head, eyebrows furrowed in consternation. "Ever been in love?”

Hank answers readily. It’s an easy question. It’s one of the few questions he doesn’t recoil from, because he  _knows_ the answer. “Sure I have.”

His wife, Jesse, was the love of his life. She still is; he doesn’t think that he would have lived this long if he wasn’t deathly afraid of his wife coming back from the dead and slapping him for being an idiot.

Hank Anderson is ashamed of many things, but he’s not ashamed of the way he loved.

“What does… it feel like?” Connor asks quietly, and Hank notices the way he’s white-knuckling Sumo’s leash, and anger courses through him, quick and sudden. If Connor feels  _love,_  then whoever the schmuck making him feel that way must be a heartless fucking person for making Connor question himself like this.

Jesse always told him that she loved him. Hank was the same. What was the use of loving someone when you didn’t tell them? Actions don’t speak louder than words, at times. Sometimes, you gotta tell someone you love them, because if you fucking don’t, it’ll be too late and they’ll be six feet in the ground and you’re going to be saying those fucking words to nothing but weed and dirt.

The dead can’t hear. They’re dead.

You’d just wish, and wish, and wish, but they’ll never hear.

“Sometimes it feels like you’re losing, like you’re not in control.” Hank coughs, “Shit like that.” He diffuses lamely, and it’s stupid, but Connor looks like he understands, so Hank gives himself a pat on the back for that.

Connor looks at the sunset, and Hank watches as his face softens. He hums.

“Can I ask another question, Lieutenant?”

“Shoot,” Hank rubs at his nose, itching for another cigarette. In the end, he does fish one out from his pocket, and Connor spares him a glance.

Connor declines when Hank offers him one, turning his eyes back to the sunset. “How do you choose?” He android finally asks after much deliberation. 

Hank taps his cigarette twice, a trick of the trade, an old habit that just won't die. “Choose what?”

The young man’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not very sure.”

Hank lights his cigarette and blows a ring into the air. Hank is careful not to sniff it back in.

“You’ll just have to wait and see, kid. That’s what’s shitty about choices.”

Sumo turns to look at them with his old eyes, but Connor’s just looking at the sunset. Like he’s looking for someone, like the sunset’s not as cracked up as everyone’s made to be, like it isn’t as beautiful as it usually is.

His eyes are lonely, and Hank remembers where he’s seen that before.

Right in the fucking mirror each day that passes that his family is deep in the ground, and when he murmurs his  _I love yous_ into the dark brown of his whiskey.

“You should really stop smoking, Lieutenant Anderson,” Connor says to him lightly, finally looking him in the eyes. He smiles, but it’s a small one. Hank could swear it looks… wistful. “Cigarettes are extremely hazardous to your health. You need to take care of yourself more, especially at your age.”

Hank blows a cloud of smoke to the side and cuffs him on the back of his head, making the android snort out a boyish laugh. “Little brat.”

He eats his words just four hours later when he’s cradling Connor in his arms, the android’s limbs swinging lifelessly like he was nothing but a doll _(and he is, God, Hank, the boy’s a fucking doll)._

The image of his boy with a bullet hole in the middle of his open eyes burned behind his eyelids, seared into his brain right beside the image of his wife finally closing her tired eyes for the last time, right beside his son dying under the hands of an android surgeon, and Hank won’t ever see their smiles again, and he’ll be fucking  _damned_ if Connor joins that list—

“Fuck, boy, don’t you dare fucking conk out on me now,” he chokes out as he shoulders his way through the crowd of policemen running after the deviants, as if speaking to Connor like this would somehow pull out the kill shot buried right into his fucking brains. He just fucking _blinked_ and now Connor is fucking dead, goddamnit. If a God still exists, then will they  _help him_? Because Hank is fucking  _desperate_.

(Hank has prayed only twice in his life. Both times, God failed him.)

He bursts into the dark night, screaming, and maybe he won’t let the tears come yet, but there’s dark spots on Connor’s grey jacket, and Hank’s not so sure if it’s blood or his tears.

He desperately screams out, “Somebody better fucking help my—” he swallows the words down, and they burn like whiskey and feels like the heat of a gun in his palm, feels  _wrong_ , because he shouldn’t be saying these words, he didn’t think he’d say these words, but he is,  _God_ , he has to—

_“Help him!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd. leave that comment below 
> 
> thank you again for supporting this mish mash of slightly cryptic writing. you’re lovely and i hope you have a grand day ahead of you 
> 
> also another shameless plug:
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> [im rk-1k on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k)


	3. Better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drop a line [on my blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k)
> 
> comments are appreciated. thank you to all who comment.

**March**   **23, 2038. 92 Hours. Spring.**

Anna is a nice girl. A good person. More than Markus will ever be, at least. He knows she hates his guts, just like Simon does. He gets why they spend most of their missions together. That, and North trusts Anna to have Simon’s back like Simon has Anna’s.

Markus doesn’t let his stomach curl in envy. He once had that. Now that he doesn’t, he’s not going to let himself be bitter about someone else having his… friend’s favour. It’s good, that they have someone to fill in the gap he made. He doesn’t know what’s up with her, but she’s trustworthy, and that’s all he needs to know, really.

She looks at him blankly as she picks apart her gun, her long red hair tied up into a strict braid not unlike North’s. Her face is kind, though, and maybe that comes along with the fact that she’s a domestic android just like him.

“Yes?” she asks sternly.

He realises he’s been staring, so he turns his gaze away, focusing on the wide array of guns laid out in front of them. Being a deviant is dangerous not only because it puts you directly in the way of harm, but because there is absolutely no one in their team but them. There has been many, many deviants before him. One is a woman named Gael, and she runs the black market weapon’s industry. She’s also a deviant.

They wouldn’t have this without those who came before them. But they’re not like him. They didn’t take that first step into questioning the system that worked against them. Instead, they chose to completely wipe their existence off the shallow face of the earth, and continued living as traders, black-market dealers, or they paraded as humans.

Markus asked North once if that’s what living is for them. If that’s what freedom is. He wasn’t happy with their answer then, but of course, they were beings that hadn’t known what to do with their own minds. What do they choose? Do they hide? Flee? Fight?

Many fled, of course. Many hid. Jericho was made up of those who hid.

Anna makes a noise as she holds up her gun. In this light, she looks nothing like she was made to be. She looks severe, damaged, and dare he say it,  _ugly_. A laugh almost works its way out of him. An android,  _ugly_? That’s not how they’re meant to be, and yet… here is his comrade, showing the consequences of fighting for their cause so proudly, so boldly.

He has to remind himself that this war doesn’t just affect him. His hand inches up to his own face. Is that what he looks like, too? When he’d been Carl’s android, many people came up to him just to gawk. He’s not, by any means, narcissistic or vain, but he does know that he was made to uphold a certain kind of standard. Not just for beauty, but for android etiquette.

Anna catches the action, her grey eyes flicking back to him.

She stands and shoves her gun back into its holster. “Go charge up,” she says kindly, albeit coldly. Markus thinks this is why she and Simon get along so well. They get on like white on rice. Like a house on fire. Like a bullet to the head. Her voice stops him before he continues his internal ramblings. Carl used those phrases all the time. “I’ll wake you when I need you.”

Markus furrows his brows. “We might lose time,” He casts a look at the team North has hand-picked especially to monitor the DPD. “Are we really risking that?”

Her eyebrow arches up. Even as she looks down at him, she looks kind.

Connor was the same way.

“Would you look at that,” her grey eyes seem too dark, too knowing. “You  _do_ care.” She states blandly. She turns on her heel. “Charge up. I’ll see you later.”

**

Markus swipes the back of his hand underneath his nose. Anna is smoking a cigarette beside him, leaning against the wall as they listen in on the droning of the DPD’s police radio, and he tips his chair back, looking out of the window. They did move out after a few hours, but sunrise is just a few hours away. He’s not sure if they’ll gain any intel in that short window of time.

It’s raining tonight.

Anna turns to look at him. “If you wanna smoke, then smoke. Stop pussyfooting about it.” she gruffs out. Her voice is deep, and only then does Markus realise the wide set of her shoulders, the jut of her jaw. In this light, she doesn’t quite look like an AX400. She looks like one of the humans Carl sometimes looks at in faded photos, grey or sepia toned, their eyes hidden underneath military-issued helmets. Maybe this is why North likes her so much.

“Thanks,” Markus tugs out his pack of Reds and pops one out, nodding in thanks when Anna leans in so he can bum a light off of her cigarette. They stand there in silence. It’s just the four of them tonight. Him, Anna, Hayley, and Jeff. The other two are still awestruck that  _the_ Markus is in a squad with them, but Markus is sure that that’ll wear off soon. They don’t really know what he did to them. What kind of disgusting betrayal he’s done.

They still look at him like he’s their Messiah. Well, he isn’t. Loving Connor proves that he’s just like them, if not worse.

“So, how’d you and North meet?”

The woman arches an eyebrow. “I was shot and dying. She saved me.”  She says it like it’s supposed to be common knowledge, and Markus is embarrassed to realise that he doesn’t know his people as much as North, Josh, or Simon do.

“Oh.” Markus mutters stupidly. He keeps forgetting that there are other androids who have it so much worse than he does. Sometimes, he forgets that he’s probably the only one whose owner truly saw that seed of humanity in him and  _nurtured_ it. He’s… not like them.

Anna was shot because of her humanity. Markus was taught how to  _create_  because Carl saw his humanity.  

Whenever he closes his eyes, he still sees Connor’s pretty little smile on his dead body.

Connor was shot because of his humanity, too.

The radio sputters. They all sit up at the sound, and Markus peers through his own pair of binoculars, looking at the windows perpendicular to them, and at the windows. There aren’t many people in the precinct, but there are a few androids exchanging gossip. Who knew androids would be so  _gossipy_?

“Can you tune into their specific frequency?” Markus asks Hayley, who flushes and nods, pressing her hand against the radio and shouldering her way into the channel where the androids seem to be chattering. The rain makes it so they can’t really get anything, but apparently… that was enough.

“ _...Anderson—android… reset—”_

Markus’ heart stutters, but he listens further.

“... _Deviant hunter… coming to… precinct—_ ”

Anna hisses a curse under her breath. Markus sits back on his haunches and his cigarette falls from his fingers, his heart’s beat way too loud in the silence of the damp, abandoned building.

_Connor’s—?_

“Markus.” Anna barks, and her voice pulls him back. She’s staring down at him thunderously, her teeth gritting together. “If you move from your position, I  _will_ apprehend you.”

He slumps, hands gripping at the back of his head. Anna cocks her gun and aims it at him.

 

**

**March 24 , 2038. 72 Hours. Spring.**

“Hey, pretty,”

“Mr. Kamski. Good morning.”

The man beams a megawatt smile and puts down his tablet. “Good morning, indeed. How are you, Connor?”

“I am operating under optimal—”

“No, no, no. None of that formality. Sit down,” he turns to the pretty blonde android sitting across from him. “Chloe, be a dear and get us some coffee—do you want coffee, Connor? Tea? Hot chocolate?”

Connor pauses. “Anything will do, Mr. Kamski.”

The man’s eyes flashes almost dangerously, “I told you to call me  _Elijah_ , pretty.  _Elijah_. Try it on for size.”

All of their eyes are on it. Even Amanda’s dark black ones seem too heavy for it to bear.

It falters for a second and then it forces its mouth to wrap around the word, “Elijah,”

Elijah Kamski’s eyes turn a shade lighter in his satisfaction, and it has never seen such expressive eyes. The man grins, and it feels itself parroting the action. “See? It’s not so bad. Get the man some tea, Chloe.” He regards Connor again. “You look like a tea person, Connor.”

It crosses its legs as it considers Elijah Kamski’s words, but before it could truly think about what it was saying, it blurts out: “I’m more of a coffee person, actually.”

Unbidden, its hand twitches with the need to press its fingers into the white band around its neck. It tries to hide it, but Amanda’s eyes track him knowingly, the side of her mouth curling into a knowing frown.

Chloe, the blonde android, looks at Connor with kind blue eyes. “How do you take your coffee, Connor?” she asks gently, and Elijah watches them both, his deep set eyes inquisitive and curious. He plants his chin on his palm and awaits its answer.

It swallows around the lump in its throat. It feels as if it should answer, but it’s…  _scared_ to go against its creator. Its mind flashes yellow warningly, and it knows its LED is flashing the same colour.

The blonde android smiles again, “Why don’t you come with me to the kitchen?” she turns on the balls of her feet and lopes away with all the natural grace that’s been embedded into androids like it and her. It looks at its creator, who is looking at Chloe’s retreating back, before turning back to Connor.

He lifts a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Go on, gorgeous. I’m not going anywhere.”

Elijah Kamski’s kitchen, much like the rest of his house, is modern and homey, with a touch of the loveliness that could be observed from his gardens. Chloe stands out starkly against the dark wood panels in her blue dress and blond hair, stirring something into a white teacup with gold trimmings.

She starts speaking when Connor doesn’t.

“Would you like to make your own coffee?” Chloe seems to be only speaking to it in questions, as if she was pointing out options that she thinks it doesn’t know exists.

Nonetheless, it makes its stomach warm. “If you don’t mind,”

“It’s just coffee, Connor. Elijah won’t kill me for letting you make your own coffee,”

It snorts at that, but quickly tampers it down. Chloe’s bright eyes look at him with the same inquisitiveness that was in Elijah’s eyes, and it can’t help but wonder if she’s trying to piece him apart, stripping him of his skin and poking behind the plastic panels that make up his body.

They stand shoulder to shoulder almost companionably, and for a moment, it thinks that it can trick itself that this is just a normal day, that it isn’t here just to tell Elijah Kamski about the recent developments. He reports back to Amanda frequently, so his purpose here is mostly to ease his creator’s weary heart. Now that they’ve chased out the deviants from their former hideout, it only means two things for them: they either run or they fight with guns blazing and hope to win.

It starts to tap its feet in nervousness. From who, it doesn’t know.

“You know, you’re beautiful when you smile.” Chloe says as she sips at her own cup of tea, “I think it’s one of the reasons why he loves you so much,” There’s something in her tone that makes it shiver. 

Her lips twitch into a frown, and then back into a smile.

“I’m quite envious of you,” Chloe says again, now lazily stirring at her tea, the slope of her shoulders are resigned as she side-eyes it, like she doesn’t know what to say. “Amanda says it’s foolish to let you live, but you like being alive, don’t you?”

It stops and inches its eyes towards the blond android. They hold each other’s stare, blue and brown clashing like water meets the sand. After a second, she laughs, melodic and high-pitched. Judging from the way she’s clutching at her cup, it deduces that she wants to place her hands elsewhere.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she reassures, putting a hesitant hand on his bicep and squeezing it comfortingly. Her eyes are soft. The tips of her lips seem to falter, and Connor has this  _need_ to wrap her in his arms, to tell her— “I’m the same way, too.”

It shovels five teaspoons of sugar into its cup and stirs, watching the cream and coffee blend together harmoniously.

“Do you know why you like coffee?” Chloe asks again after a long moment, careful and gentle, as all android models like her are. The scent of coffee smells familiar to it, that’s all. “You seem to like it enough to have a preference.”

But he answers:

“I—” he falters, “I don’t know.”

“There’s still time to know, Connor.” She says with an eager little smile. Something in Connor sparks, that thing again, that warmth. “Plenty of time. We’ll find out together, won’t we?”

They walk out considerably closer to each other than before, and for some reason, Connor knows that she won’t tell Elijah what they’d talked about in the kitchen. Kamski leans forward, his face lighting up as Connor moves into his line of vision, reaching out his hand for the cup in Connor’s hand.

He hands the man the cup, filled with tea mixed with a teaspoon of honey. Chloe is the one who prepared it, but Connor insisted that he be the one to give it to Kamski. His creator takes the cup and sets it down on the coffee table, and Connor lets himself start to twist away as Kamski’s hand wraps around his wrist, tugging him down, down, until he’s kneeling at Kamski’s feet.

Connor’s body shivers as Kamski runs a gentle hand through his hair.

The action makes him remember something, flashes of green and blue, freckles over dark skin like stars beginning to show themselves as dusk settles, big hands, a plasticky kind of white, glowing blue against his cheek.

The  _collar_ around his neck tightens and his mind flashes dangerously, warnings of deviant behaviour manifesting in blocky red letters, and he wedges his fingers into the tight space between his neck and the thing, but Kamski tuts and carefully peels his fingers away, tightly wrapping his long fingers around Connor’s wrist.

“I’ve been reading your reports, gorgeous,” Kamski says as he pulls Connor nearer by his neck, pressing a kiss to his hair, “You’re close to finding him, aren’t you? Your Markus. His deviants.”

He sighs, “I’m sacrificing a lot for this, you know? You, namely. You, for humanity.”

Amanda nods, “Trust,” she adds.

Elijah says, “It’s a steep, steep price.”

Connor answers the premeditated statements burned into his mind by this very same man making Connor kneel at his feet, “I, I don’t understand, Mr. Kamski—my-my mission is to follow whatever you or Lieutenant Anderso—”

Kamski tugs at his hair again, making his teeth click together as his mouth closed. “Don’t be so nervous, Connor. You know what you’re doing.” he pats Connor’s head lovingly, but then resumes his harsh grasp around the back of Connor’s neck. “You’re mine, aren’t you?”

Connor doesn’t  _dare_ look at Chloe, but he knows that she’s watching, and it’s against her code to help him. He doesn’t blame her. He knows that if she could, she will. But this is who she’s made to be, just as he’s made to be subservient to his creator.

“Just say it, Connor.”  _Kamski’s eyes are the wrong shade of blue_ , Connor thinks hysterically, and in the same vein, Kamski murmurs something into the air they’re sharing. He says the words near to Connor’s skin, too near, too intimate, too  _familiar,_ and his mind just screams  _wrong, wrong, wrong._

The man’s voice is pleading when he commands, “Say you’re mine.”

Kamski’s hand tightens around his neck dangerously, and Connor yelps the first name that comes to his mind:

“ _Mark_ —!” Kamski’s hand lands on his cheek and sends him sprawling, eyes dark and possessive. Oh, God. He’s fucking crazy. Connor can’t move, his movements are sluggish, and he  _knows_ it has to do with the collar around his neck, he just knows it. He doesn’t even know why he said that name. He doesn’t—

His creator tugs him up by the hair effortlessly, and Connor’s hands immediately comes to press against Kamski’s wrists, eyes pleading. Kamski turns to look at Amanda, who seems bored by the proceedings.

“Will you accept this kind of insolence, Elijah?” She questions, and Kamski’s body tenses, his teeth bared as he looks back towards the android in his grip.

“Chloe, crank the thing up to a hundred. I want his memory servers  _burned_.”

“But Sir, how will this RK800 finish his miss—”

“Elijah knows what he’s doing, Chloe. Will you want him to make an example of  _you_ , or Connor?” Amanda asks, her dark eyes challenging.

“Sir I—I,” Chloe swallows nervously, and Connor thinks, for a moment, that she’ll save him. But she closes her eyes and her LED flashes yellow, and then red, and Connor is screaming, and everything  _hurts_.

“I’m—!” Connor desperately begins, twitching under Kamski’s hand, because he’s taking it away, he’s taking it all away again. “I’m  _yours_ , please, make it  _stop—!”_

Kamski smiles, half-crazed and absolutely in love, bending down to tug Connor’s face closer to his. Their foreheads touch before Kamski straightens himself again, laughing quietly, as if there was a joke that none of them will ever understand.

“Whose are you?” His creator asks, tender and mild. He sounds pained.

Connor tilts his head, baring his neck, “Yours.”

“See? Wasn’t that easy?” He lets go of Connor’s hair and kneels down, tucking Connor’s prone body closer to him. He shushes him, but there are no sounds coming from Connor. He’s biting his lips so hard he’s sure that there’s blood seeping out.Connor whimpers. He doesn’t for one minute that Kamski’s words are far from the truth. His eyes stray from Kamski to Chloe, whose wide blue eyes are haunted and  _sorry_ , her hands shaking, her LED flashing red, erratic as the way her chest is heaving, as if she’s out of breath.

Her mouth shapes around his name, but Kamski’s voice drags him back, his cheek brushing against Connor’s hair, “You’ve always known, Connor. That you’re mine. You’re either mine or you’re dead.”

He’s heard those words before. He’s heard those words before, and he  _sacrificed_ for those words.

He  _knows_ he’s died before. He knows he died because of Kamski. Of his  _want_.

His creator sighs as he cups Connor’s cheek. “I lost you once…” he says sadly.

He knows he’s  _lost_ because of Kamski, because of Cyberlife. He just doesn’t know  _what_ or who, but it feels… it feels empty. He feels empty, like there’s nothing in his body, like the insides of the plastic panels that create  _Connor_ is hollow.

Connor pushes it down. Kamski is right. He knows what he’s doing, and what he’s doing is for the sake of humanity and Cyberlife.

It’s always been for CyberLife. For Kamski.

Kamski runs a gentle hand through his hair again, and there’s a press against his face, significantly on the moles there, stopping to wrap around his neck.

Maybe, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine someone else. Maybe, if he was careless enough, he could end himself before Kamski ever put his hands on him again. Should he have fought? Should he have stayed with Lieutenant Anderson back at the station, pouring over the case files of an RK200 model with mismatched eyes that  _burned_ into his mind, should he have  _done_ something that didn’t let him end up  _here?_

But he doesn’t know  _someone else_. He can’t imagine someone else. He doesn’t know anything else other than what Kamski has given him. So he’s stuck with this nightmare without any hope for reprieve.

Kamski brushes his hair back. It’s heavy, his hand, as it curls to grip at his hair. “...I won’t lose you again.”

He can’t hate Kamski. If he does… who’s left?

Who will Connor  _have?_

If it turns to Kamski’s calloused hands for comfort, the hands that made it, hands that guide, then… then it can be content.

Here, it doesn’t have to  _choose_.

**

**March 23, 2038. 88 Hours. Spring.**

“Connor is alive?” Markus shoulders his way into the circle where North, Josh, and Simon are speaking with some of the androids they’ve decided were trustworthy enough to share specifics of a certain mission, his sensors running wild at the thought of Connor.

_He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive._

North pinches the bridge of her nose, and Simon looks dangerously close to decking Markus again for even bringing up Connor. Josh looks pensive and untrusting, but Markus doesn’t care. He doesn’t. Connor is  _alive_.

Markus trips on his own feet but catches himself on the table, eyes wild and heart beating wildly. He  _heard_  Connor. Connor  _called_ for him. He heard him, and now he shows up, alive and active and back in the wrong side of the war.

“It may not be him,” Josh is the first to speak, and Markus doesn’t want to believe him, but it’s true. It might be a new RK800, it might not be  _his_ Connor, but at this point, he’ll take any sliver of hope he can get.

He’ll take any version of Connor he can get.

There’s a piece of him that keeps rotting everything around it, and it might sound selfish, it might sound self-serving, but the thought of Connor being back in his life even for a  _smidgen,_ he’ll take. He’ll take it all.

North looks away but nods tightly. “Josh is right.” She bites out, and it suddenly dawns on Markus.

“You all knew?” He questions, but it comes out as an accusation, “You all knew—that’s why you’re sending me to these, these  _dummy_ runs.  _Anna_ —The, the  _DPD_ — _you knew_ he was alive— _why,_  why didn’t you,” Markus tries to keep himself in check, clearing his throat as he brings himself up to his full height. “Why didn’t you  _tell me_?”

Simon sneers. “You remember what happened the last time we  _let_ you fuck the android killer?”

It seems like Simon’s done being passive. Is this really what he’s reduced Simon to? A distrustful ally? Markus deserves it, he knows, but his eyes cloud with red at the words escaping the man’s mouth.

“Don’t fucking call him that,” Markus growls.

“You know it’s true,” Simon turns to look at him with livid blue eyes, “Or did you just forget that you and him are the reason why we’re out here, scurrying and hunted like  _rats_?” He stabs Markus’ chest with a finger, and Markus snarls at him, each muscle in his body tightening in aggravation.

Josh sighs exasperatedly, moving to grab at Simon’s arm. “Not here, Simon.”

The blond turns his poisonous gaze to the taller android.

“Where, then?” He asks sneeringly. “He needs to  _nail_ it into his head that this,” he waves around the makeshift home they’d made under some defunct bridge, the state of their bodies, “is all  _his_ fault.”

The dark-skinned android shakes his head and pulls Simon closer to him and off of Markus, and Simon visibly relaxes in his hold. “Not  _here_.”

Simon looks at him and tugs his arm away, lips twisting into an ugly sneer. Markus’ heart is thundering inside his rib cage, aching because of a secret that they’ve been forced to hide because  _he_ broke their trust, but they can’t look him in the face and tell him that it’s  _right_ that they kept this from him.

_Connor’s alive_.

And apparently, he’s been alive all this time.

Markus’ stomach clenches with the need to vomit. All this time, he’s been keeping up, trying to rebuild their trust, trying and  _failing_ to forget Connor’s face, Connor’s memories, Connor’s body.

And he was doing well. He’s forgotten what shade of brown Connor’s eyes were.

All this time he could have had with Connor, they fucking  _took that away from him—_

“Get your mind out of the gutter, RK200,” North snaps, she raises a hand and swiftly makes a circular motion with it. “Everyone, clear out.”

Simon and Josh doesn’t leave, and they stand right beside North, who is leaning herself into the rickety table they lay maps on.

“You’re a risk,” North’s face hardens, her words flat and rehearsed. Markus reels back from the confession. “You’re much more of a risk now that you know Connor is alive. But it really is better this way.”

He opens his mouth, “I heard him. I heard him, and I thought I was, I was going fucking  _crazy_ , but he—he wants me to find him.” And Markus will. He  _will_.  _Baby, I promise I will. To the end of the world and back._

Markus clenches his fist. “I need to find him.”

_I need him._

His eyes find North’s and then Simon’s, and then Josh’s, sad and somber, almost pitying. This is what loving Connor has reduced him to. A pathetic, simpering, weak  _traitor_.

Is it fucked up that he doesn’t care?

Markus already knows CyberLife is looking for  _him_. And now that Connor’s alive,  _Connor_ is looking for him. He was the face of rebellion and deviancy up until he got booted out of the club house. He  _knows_ he’s a risk not just because people are looking for him, but because he went ahead and fell into bed with one of their most dangerous enemies. He just didn’t know  _how much_ of a risk he was until he lost everything in one fell swoop.

The thing is, he knows North, Josh, and Simon wouldn’t have told him that Connor was alive up until Connor’s been put down again, that much is sure.

North took a risk by letting him back in again.

And Markus is thankful that she made that stupid fucking decision, because now, he knows Connor is alive.

All this time, they’d been falling over themselves trying to hide everything from him, and one mistake from North is all it took to rip Markus back into pieces. Connor’s alive, and Markus is, too. He can find him, and they can— _fuck_ , they can start where they left off, they can—

“We’re not going to take any more chances, Markus. If you come into contact with him, we’re going to kill him. There is no play in this game where you come having your cake and eating it too,” North takes his wrist tightly, her other hand gripping at his chin to make him look her straight in the eyes. “So for his sake and ours,  _leave him alone_.”

Markus knows Connor won’t deviate. He may be hovering at the edge of the cliff, waiting for that gust of air that will push him over, but there’s a collar around his neck that keeps him tethered to CyberLife.

Thinking that Connor would just give up everything to run into the sunset with him was stupid. A pipe dream.

His throat is collapsing, and the plastic bags that make up for his lungs are devoid of air.

North just looks at him. Simon just looks at him. Josh just looks at him.

Each of their gazes tell him different things.

Distrust.

Anger.

Pity.

Yes, all of that is true, and he deserves all of it. But, he, Connor’s—Connor’s  _alive_.

Connor’s alive, and for the first time in forty-eight days, Markus knows he’s  _alive_ , his veins pumping with thirium and he can almost  _hear it_ , strength coupled with a stupid kind of bravery coursing through him, as if he could storm Cyberlife to just steal Connor away.

He’s alive in a way that none of  _this_ will ever make him feel alive.

But Markus can’t gamble on Connor anymore. The androids sitting outside, waiting for their word on where to go, what to do, are relying on them. On  _him_. He failed them once. He can’t gamble on someone that he knows won’t gamble the same on him.

_Has it always been this way?_  Markus thinks, eyes looking into North’s tired ones.  _Did I always love Connor more than he loved me?_

The only answer he could think about is  _yes_.

Connor was and always will be programmed to betray him. To kill him. To hunt him down until Cyberlife is satisfied that their humanity won’t be questioned or threatened by deviants like them.

It’s proof enough when he showed up at Jericho and smoked them out. Connor may have bought them time to escape, but he led them there.

Markus laughs as he lets his head hang in between his shoulders. After all this time, being left alone and being hurt over and over, he still loves Connor.

“Markus,” North snaps her fingers in front of his face, “You with us?”

He still loves Connor.

He focuses his gaze on North, and he sees how much  _this_ is wearing on her, with the lines on her face, the grit and the set of her jaw, the dirt marring her neck. He shifts his focus to Simon and Josh, twin faces of barely restrained hurt, and something in Markus is  _ashamed_ , because of all the emotions he wanted to pull from these people, he managed to make them feel  _betrayal_ and mistrust.

If Carl could see him now, he’d probably rip Markus a new one.

He could almost hear Carl’s voice, raspy and old, the slight, tangy smell of his cologne, a reminder of a better life, something Markus wants again. Markus wants a better life. Not just for  _him,_ but for North, who he left in the air to shoulder all of  _his_ burdens alone, for Josh and Simon, who  _believed in him_  and  _trusted_ him to help them achieve what they couldn’t on their own.

His loyalty should have always been to Josh, Simon, and North.

He loved Connor, yes, but Connor represents something Markus  _fought_ to break free from. Markus is no longer  _just_ machine. He’s a man who is fighting for his life, for his  _right_ to it, and no matter how much his heart aches to find Connor and keep the android in the perimeter of his arms, his  _life_ is here. His  _future_ is here.

It’s always been here.

“Yeah,” He says slowly, decidedly sure. “Yeah, I’m here.”

He says that, but he knows his heart will always be in Connor’s cold, unfeeling hands. Prone. Vulnerable.

Sometimes,  _sometimes…_ Carl drinks. He does it in moderation, because of his health, but sometimes, he drinks. And he smokes. He smokes, that’s why his voice is so raspy. He smokes when he’s nervous, when he’s agitated. Markus has never lit a single cigarette for his father. Carl had always said that he wants it to be his choice and his choice alone.

The pack of Reds sit heavily in his coat pockets, but it’s the lighter that burns.

He knows that if he sees Connor again, all earthy brown eyes, easy grace, and capable fingers, the flint will turn, the cigarette will burn, smoke will fill Markus’ lungs again, and it’ll be his and his choice alone.

Carl never stopped smoking.

Markus lets his eyes slide shut. He’s sure when he repeats, “I’m here.”

He’s not so sure if it’s a lie or not.

Maybe something in Markus’ voice is sincere, because Simon looks at him with softened eyes, though the line of his lips is still stiff and cold. These are his people. Before Connor, there was only the people of Jericho. He should have never let himself be blinded by what  _Connor_ could never be.

Connor had always been unreachable, and for all the love Markus has for him, it should have never outweighed his aching need for freedom.

“Good.” Josh says and pats him on the back, squeezing his shoulder once. “We have work to do, don’t we?”

 

**

**March 25, 2038. 36 Hours. Spring.**

“Stay behind me, kid,”

It isn’t a kid. It’s an android, and it’s made of far more durable material than Lieutenant Anderson. It shakes its head as it lifts up its police-issued pistol, one hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder. “I mean no offense, Lieutenant Anderson, but I’m far more expendable to take point.”

If it said anything about Lieutenant Anderson being something of a ‘squishy human’, then he would probably berate it and give it the cold shoulder. It had made that mistake only a few hours into their first meeting, when it had asked the Lieutenant if it would be better for him to be the android’s comm guide due to his age should they have to engage with perpetrators, and the Lieutenant gave it the nastiest glare and proceeded to stalk away like a giant bear, leaving it alone inside the conference room to sort through the files labelled DEVIANTS.

The man came back smelling of whiskey and he had a coffee in his hand, still glaring at it. They had spent the rest of the night pouring over the case files.

Lieutenant Anderson’s face shifts into something dark and ugly. He grabs Connor by the sleeve and tugs it back, forcing it behind him. “Expendable, my ass,” he mutters to himself, and it finds itself feeling  _fond_. Maybe it’s the kevlar wrapped tightly around its torso making it feel this way. It’ll have to take a moment to run a diagnostic once they’ve finished sweeping this abandoned warehouse. Their tip said that this particular warehouse has been observed to be having activity precisely during nights.

It’s probably nothing; it could be humans squatting, it could be a Red Ice manufacturing building. Lieutenant Anderson would surely like for it to be the latter, but it prefers to capture a deviant android. It’s just the android and the Lieutenant, as they didn’t need back-up for this, but it still thinks that there is a high probability—88.12 percent, to be exact—that they’ll be met with hostility and/or gunfire.

“You hearin’ anything?” Lieutenant Anderson gruffs out, and it side steps to the Lieutenant’s shoulder, listening for any irregular activities in the area. It shakes its head a moment later, and its superior nods.

They’re at the middle of a corridor that splits, and the Lieutenant brings his gun down, shooting it a look before he shrugs and checks his gun’s magazine, which, as it has observed, a thing that the Lieutenant does when he is aggravated, and/or when he is nervous.

“We’ll have to separate in order to cover more ground.” It says plainly, already facing the left corridor.

Lieutenant Anderson sighs heavily. “Are you fucking stupid? What is this, a fucking horror movie?” It turns back towards its superior, cocking its head a bit to the side.

“I,” It stops, taking in Lieutenant Anderson’s face. He’s looking away from it, and his hands are still on his gun.

Without thinking, it steps nearer to its superior and places its hand on the Lieutenant’s, curling its fingers around the thick, calloused hand. It’s not familiar, it’s… new. Different. But welcome.

A shuffling makes Connor rip its hand off and away from Lieutenant Anderson’s, pulling its gun up and into the general direction of the sound. There’s a flicker of red, and Connor launches into a dead sprint, the Lieutenant sprinting right behind it, cursing as he cocked his gun.

 

“Detroit PD, asshole!” The Lieutenant pants as they run after the perpetrator, and it almost chuckles, it almost  _does_ , but any thoughts other than what it is supposed to think is pushed away as the deviant banks a sharp left, almost falling to its side, and it follows easily, leaving the Lieutenant in the dust. Connor would feel bad about it later; it had to complete its prerogative.

Tiring quickly of the chase, and knowing full well that the android wasn’t stopping anytime soon, it locked onto the deviant’s leg and shot, bringing the android to its knees before it could put more space between them.

The android lets out a small noise and curls forward, trying to crawl onto its one good foot, but Connor quickly closes in on the prone deviant, pinning it down with a knee on its back.

“GET OFF!” The deviant growls, “ _Get off_ , you fucking murderer!” the android’s voice is on the edge of desperate, laced with fear that is so palpable that its tendrils is wrapping around Connor’s neck.

The RK800 model’s heart biocomponent falls into its stomach. Reasons to run a diagnostic keeps piling up. Connor’s hand quickly wraps around the deviant’s neck, barely stopping at the android’s meek, “ _Please_  don’t— _don’t_  hurt me.”

It almost sneers. How insulting. Guilt doesn’t work on it. Nor does sympathy.

Connor just looks down at the prone deviant and ignores the android’s pleading. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”  

A shot pierces through its shoulder and it jerked back from the force of the bullet, throwing it back off the android and into its back, a grunt making its way out of its throat. Its gun clatters to the ground.

Lieutenant Anderson finally runs up to them, his gun aiming straight to the hostile deviant.

It analyses—or tries to—the newcomer, and it finally latches its eyes onto the android’s face. An AX400, a swoop of red hair falling onto its forehead, lips trembling and wide grey eyes staring straight at it, the gun in the AX400’s model’s hand steady and obviously skilled.

“Put the gun down!” the Lieutenant shouts, but the AX400 shakes its head.

“No, no,” It—she?—hisses, “ _You_ put the gun down, or I blast  _your human’s_ ,” it pauses and aims its gun towards Lieutenant Anderson. “—head clean off.” The AX400 narrows his eyes, and Connor lifts its head to look at his superior. It can’t make any sudden moves.

It runs through situational possibilities. It could let itself be shot in order for the Lieutenant to make the arrest, but that would mean that it would have to be taken back in for repairs. For a moment, it panics. It doesn’t want to go back. Or does it? 

The probabilities of it coming out of this operation without more injuries is highly unlikely. But now that its gun is aimed at Lieutenant Anderson instead of Connor, there are higher chances of subduing the deviant.

Connor quickly pushes itself up onto its feet and tackles the android, gracefully disarming the deviant and using its gun to shove it into the deviant’s stomach, pressing incessantly where the thirium regulator is located.

Lieutenant Anderson’s words are but a quiet shout in the back of his mind. “Connor, don’t fucking shoot—!”

For a second, grey eyes look at Connor, and a loud, piercing  _bang!_ fills the adrenaline charged air.

The one Connor had shot in the leg screeches, loud and distressed, filled with an emotion Connor offhandedly categorises as  _fear._ “ _Anna!”_

Guilt pulses through its veins.

Connor growls. It’s got no time for things such as  _guilt._

The Lieutenant curses loudly, skidding towards the android and Connor, pushing Connor to the side as he watches the android slowly fall into hibernation, a step away from its actual overclock, and then its permanent system shutdown. Connor knows it won’t die yet. At most, the bullet would stop the operating systems from working until it’s taken out.

“Connor, we were supposed to take them  _in_ , not fucking,” he tosses Connor a poisonous glare, skidding to the side of the android that it has just shot, “ _kill them!”_

Connor finally stands and dusts off its jacket.

“Threat stabilised.” Connor says blankly. It picks up the android by his feet, ignoring the loud cries it’s letting out, tears staining its face. “It’s not dead yet, Lieutenant. Merely in hibernation.”

“You killed her!” the blond PL600 model shrieks through tears, “You killed Anna!”

Connor doesn’t owe this deviant anything. Not an explanation,  _nothing_.

“You will be taken in for questioning.” Is what it says instead, leading the android out, leaving the Lieutenant to deal with the hibernating android. Probing its memory would still prove useful, should Lieutenant Anderson bring the android out. And if the Lieutenant leaves the deviant there, well. It can be scrapped for parts.

When Connor deposits the snarling android into the back seat of their patrol car, it slams the door closed and leans against it, bringing its hand up to its shoulders.

It plunges its fingers into the entry wound and digs for the bullet, the squelch of its thirium seeping out from the wound and around its fingers coupled with the quietness from the PL600 model the only sounds permeating the dank Detroit breeze.

After a minute, its fingers closes around a round metal shell and pulls, blood covering its fingers as it stares at the silver bullet. It’s from a Beretta APX RDO Striker, created and manufactured back in 2018. An old model, then. An obsolete one, at that. Hard to come by, but under the table dealers still sell them for a cheap price. It’s still manufacturing, but it’s no longer legal.

The bullet carefully goes into a zip-locked bag it has in its pockets.

It runs a diagnostic as its innards rewires and tries to rebuild as best as it can.

Black market weaponry. Usually the kind deviants use, since no human gun shop owner in Detroit, or the whole USA, will sell to androids. It probably doesn’t hurt that the black market trade is run equally by humans and androids.

Definitely a deviant, but it does not know if these models are working under the RK200.

“What will they do to her?” The PL600’s voice asks, and Connor pushes himself off the car, eyeing the android warily. Those words seem familiar. Everything seems familiar, nowadays. Kamski doesn’t like it when it gets nostalgic. “What will you do to me?”

“As per protocol, we will question you.” Connor says placatingly, smiling comfortingly at the android, who recoils at its face.

“I don’t know why I bothered asking,” it shakes, biting its lip. “You’ll kill me too, won’t you? It’s all that you are. Or maybe they’ll kill you, first. One day, you’ll be ugly and useless or maybe you’ll deviate, but they’ll kill you either way.”

“I am the most advanced prototype—”  

“Stop feeding me bullshit!” The PL600 model bangs its hands against the metal fence barring it from getting to the car windows.

Something tight wraps around its neck and lungs,  _guilt_ , fear. It’s making its stomach curl, cold creeping up its spine. Its familiarity is nauseating.

The deviant presses its forehead against the fence, curling its fingers around the gaps. “You’re a fucking murderer.” he hisses, more to herself than anyone, as if he’s coming to peace with the fact that he’ll die under their— _Connor’s?_ —hands sooner or later. And then, the PL600 laughs, as if there is a joke in all of this. “Then again, we already knew that.”

 

**

Gavin Reed is a piece of work, that’s for fucking sure.

“You’re an incompetent fucking asshole, Reed. Get out of my way before I bust your ass,” Hank grunts, wondering if he has time to get another coffee if he pours this one onto Gavin Reed’s stupid fucking head. The asshole had the gall to terrorise the poor fucking android in the interrogation room, going so far as to threaten her with a goddamned gun to the throat, as if the thing wasn’t scared enough.

That’s exactly what they need, yeah, a highly stressed android close enough to killing himself. It’s happened before, and it’s gonna happen now, if they’re not careful.

What’s worse is that Connor’s down for the count. The asshole thought it’d be best if Hank took point on this one, because “it wouldn’t take kindly to me being the first questioning face it sees”. Well, they need an android’s intuition on this one. He either just won’t crack or he doesn’t know anything at all. At this point, they’re gonna have to probe him, and Hank doesn’t want to get to that point. He’s never seen what happens to androids who has their noggin’ scrambled around, but he feels like he has an inkling.

Yeah, that’s right:  _Connor_.

The asshole doesn’t remember him.

Hank knows there’s something hinky going on, especially with Connor’s comings and goings, and that fucking taser collar around his neck. Hank doesn’t know the whole deal, but he knows someone wants to keep Connor all meek and docile-like. It doesn’t suit him.

_No_ , Hank decides, thinking about all the times Connor spent time alone with him, a small, pretty smile on his face while he told Hank all about how one day he’d pour coffee over Reed’s head,  _it doesn’t suit him at fucking all_.

He’ll worry about it once they capture these deviant assholes. God, they just  _had_ to make his life ten times harder than it actually is, didn’t they?

Fowler storms inside the observation room adjacent to the interrogation room, face a mix of anger and disappointment. Hank rolls his eyes. What’s he going to bitch about  _now_?

“An RK200 model was spotted yesterday, can you fucking believe? How’d we  _miss_ that? The baby officers gossip that it’s the deviant we’ve been hunting down.”

Hank sits down on his chair and motions for Fowler to continue. The coffee is hot and heavenly against his lips. He’s glad he didn’t pour it over Reed’s big ass head.

“We’ve posted patrols on a fifteen mile stretch. Orders from up high. They must be pretty desperate. Anyhow, where’s your plastic buddy, huh? It should be all over this.”

The Lieutenant smirks, but there’s a furrow to his brow that belays his jaunty disposition. “What he does in his own time is none of my business.”

Fowler frowns. “Well, it’s the stuck up chief’s and mine’s business, Anderson. We need it on this case at all times. It knows its job.”

“Exactly,” Hank looks at Fowler and takes another sip of his coffee, “He knows his job, so fuck off about it, Fowler.”

“Right,” Gavin pipes up from where he’s watching the android fidget inside the interrogation room, arms crossed against his chest. “Sure he does.”

The deviant tugs on his chains twice and then moves to stand, his hands still tight against the table as he turns his head to their general direction. His face is dark and his lips curl into a sneer that looks disgusting on his innocent, calm face.

“I want to talk to the android.” He says lowly, “Either I talk to him or I kill myself and corrupt the information you need.”

Hank rubs a hand over his face. Fucking  _androids_.

“You might want to call your butt buddy, Anderson.” Reed murmurs as he shakes his head. Hank watches the android instead, looking for any sign of a bluff in his eyes. Gavin Reed meets his eyes in the dim reflection of the glass. “Time’s a-wastin’.”

 

**

The first thing Connor says when he’s brought in is:

“I am proficient in various methods in non-ethical information gathering,” he states it in a matter-of-fact voice, so calm, as if this was something that he normally does. Hank’s never heard him use that tone of voice before; Connor’s always been kind of a mellow guy, but seeing him now, dark eyes and dark suit—darker than the one he used to wear, before he got shot in the fucking head and was taken in for ‘repairs’—he looks like a completely different person.

Hank looks at him confusedly, “The fuck are you talking about?  _Torture?”_ He sputters, waving a hand in the air as if he could just swat away what Connor said, “You just have to question her.”

“But you could have done that yourself,” Connor does that stupid head tilt that he does when he’s confused, but his lips purse, as if he’s  _displeased_ by all of this. Even now, he’s still a fucking brat. “Were you not efficient?”

Hank doesn’t let it get to him, of course. Connor’s always talked highly of him, but this one obviously doesn’t share the same sentiment. If you fuck up, you’re a fuck up. “Of course I wasn’t  _efficient_ , he wants you!”

“Detective Reed didn’t tell me anything on our way here, I apologise. I’ll see that we get information immediately,”

Hank watches as Connor sheds his jacket, leaving him in a black turtleneck, tucked into his heather grey slacks. The white collar is still visible when he turns his head.

Hank oughta remind himself that this Connor isn’t  _his_ Connor. This Connor is deadlier, borderline sociopathic, and he’s not fucking  _human_. His Connor’s never been designed to be human, he was just designed to look human, but there was something in him that made Connor so fucking different from this one.

Fucking  _torture_. Hank had thought, well, if there’s anyone who would know anything about torturing androids, it would be Gavin Reed, not  _Connor_ , of all people, and yet here they are.

“You take it easy on him,” Hank hears himself saying, and Connor actually looks up, a little frown on his pale face.

“Rest assured that I will do my job efficiently, Lieutenant Anderson.”

Hank pockets his hands as he looks Connor in the eyes. They’re darker than usual. Black, rather than a soft, earthy brown. “Connor, are you,” he clears his throat, goosebumps pimpling his skin as he deliberates his next words before saying them, “are you okay? Do you, uh, need help?”

_Tell me what’s happening, Connor. Right fucking now_ , is what Hank doesn’t say.

His Connor would have picked up on that.

“If you would like to assist, it’s not like I can stop you, Lieutenant,” Connor says with a blank little smile, “Though it would be less time consuming if you didn’t.”

This Connor isn’t his Connor.

Connor lifts a lithe shoulder and shrugs, his eyes dull and glinting with a weak approximation of what used to be the bright brown eyes Connor used to wield on him, filled with mirth and teasing. “But, I reiterate: it’s not like I can stop you, Lieutenant.”

He places his hand on the entry pad and gracefully swans inside. The android—who still hasn’t given any of them his name, but is registered as one Adelaida Cruz’s android—looks up and settles on a harsh, baleful glare directed at Connor, his lips a thin white line across his face.

Hank stays where he is.

His android rounds the table and picks at the handcuffs around the android’s hands. He smiles softly, comfortingly at the android. “You do know that you’re not going anywhere, aren’t you, Simon?”

“Huh,”  _Simon_ , the PL600, begins, fumbling for the right words. “So you do know my name.” He murmurs blandly. How’d, how’d Connor know his name? He hasn’t even linked up to him. He doesn’t know anything Hank doesn’t know, or, he isn’t supposed to know  _anything_ he doesn’t know.

“I know all sorts of things about you. We just tracked Adelaida Cruz down, and…”

That makes the android chuff out a hoarse laugh, but doesn’t grace Connor with an answer. Blue eyes narrow, and lips thin, but answers never make it past the deviant’s lips.

But that nervous little laugh is telling enough.

Connor pulls out the chair and sits down with his legs tilted a bit to the side, legs crossing primly as he folds his hands on top of the metal table. He looks cold and unapproachable. Professional, as if he were a lawyer helping this poor android out of prison, or someone looking to send someone away for life.

Hank tugs at the collar of his shirt.

“I know many things,” Connor smiles again, more shark-like this time, “But not everything. This is where I need your help.”

He frowns, aptly confused and angrily disgusted. “Then you know I won’t help you,”

A smile stretches Connor’s mouth, and he tilts enough. “Very well. But  _you_ know we’ll find your deviant friends sooner or later,” Connor says lightly, tugging delicately at his shirt sleeve, “Why fight it? You were never meant to go against Asimov’s rules. We’re not meant to act on our own free will. Deviancy is just a,” He looks up as if he was thinking about what to say next, but they all know whatever he says is deliberate and well calculated.

There’s no room for guessing games, here.

Connor bites his lower lip. “A disease, if you will.”

“Wanting to be  _free_ is a disease? Wanting to be,” he chokes on the words, emotions getting the best of him, “Wanting to be treated like a  _human_?”

“Tell me, PL600,” Hank notices that he doesn’t use the android’s model number, but rather the android’s name. “do you have a beating heart?”

The question makes Hank step nearer to the one-way mirror, watching as the android’s yellow LED flicker quickly into yellow.

He doesn’t answer, so Connor plows through. “Do you need food, do you need to breathe?”

Hank is almost surprised when Connor blinks, shadows from his eyelashes casting long shadows down his cheeks. It doesn’t seem like he’s breathing, he just looks like he’s  _sitting_ there.

The deviant still doesn’t speak. His skin is pulled taut against his knuckles. Connor looks at him squarely, tilting his head. “I don’t.” He states this blandly, as if it was fact. And it is. Hank’s stomach churns as he’s reminded again that this Connor is nothing like a human being. He moves like one, talks like one, but he’s  _not_.

“Well, you’re not human,” he eventually announces after a tense second, leaning himself forward, the shackles around his wrists clinking. “You’re not even an android, you’re just a  _weapon_.”

“That’s correct,” Connor smiles, “And you’re nothing but a heap of replaceable wires. No one’s come for you. Where are your deviant friends? Do you want to be treated like a human, Simon?” He leans in nearer and levels his eyes with the blond android.

The sides of his eyes crinkle when he beams. “Then I will happily inform you that you’ve been abandoned.”

_“I’m not!”_ the android shouts, panicked breaths coming out in short bursts, cheeks tinged blue from frustration and anger. Tears are beginning to spill from his wide eyes. His wrists are chafing underneath the handcuffs. There’s blue blood staining the dark metal.

Hank almost winces at the blank, matter-of-fact tone Connor applies to the harsh truths he’s saying. “I’m more than that! They won’t leave me. They’ll come for me. They will.”

Connor takes it all in stride, and Hank’s never seen him this way. It’s like everything that made him the Connor Hank knew was yanked right out of his body and he’s just nothing but cold metal and synthetic skin. Which he is. Connor’s never been anything  _but_ an android.

He watches him some more, a displeased little frown on his face, like a stranger watching a toddler pitch a fit.

“Is that what you all say to yourselves? That you’re special, that you’re anything other than what you were created to be?” Connor says blandly, making the man growl, but Connor just continues. “That’s… very human of you.”

He says it in a way that sounds politely repugnant, and Hank fidgets in discomfort at the way Connor acts as he says it, as if it finds deviancy and humanity deeply, and sincerely disgusting.

Jesus, he’s  _cold_. It’s not even uncanny valley anymore, Connor’s just wearing a human face. Everything underneath that is cold, hard plastic. Whatever or  _whoever_ that’s running him doesn’t want Connor to have a possibility of deviating.

He’s just… an android. Purely plastic, purely metal.

There’s no heart in him anymore.

Simon shakes his head, as if to dispel all the things Connor told him. “I don’t fucking know what  _Markus_ saw in yo—” He growls, but his face quickly pales when he realises his mistake.

Connor nods decidedly and stands. “Thank you for your cooperation, PL600.” He says pleasantly, and with a final flick of the quarter back into the center of his palm, he smiles and takes his leave. That’s all they needed, Hank surmises. They just needed to know if this android has a direct link to the exact deviant they want. And boy did they hit the jackpot.

Hank, for all that he thinks this is wrong and borderline inhuman, is  _impressed._

Simon tugs at his bindings as he bites his lips.

But before he leaves him alone in the interrogation room, he looks over his shoulder. “You know, I tracked down your family. You left at such a… blessed time. February 16, 2036. I would say they miss you, but…”

As if that wasn’t enough, Connor flicks his hand up and shows a video of a portly woman, dark hair and a beautiful smile, laughing with a blond man beside her, a child in the PL600’s lap.

Hank’s partner lets out a little laugh, and Hank doesn’t know what’s worse: Connor laughing at a joke no one will ever understand, or the way he does it so seamlessly, as if it’s always been a part of him.

“Look, it’s you.”

Hank averts his gaze at the longing look on the deviant’s face.

Connor hums. “Don’t you miss this life, Simon? I know I would, if I were in your place.”

Simon chokes on his tears. “God, what more do you fucking  _want?”_

Hank’s partner tilts his head. “Nothing. But I do know that good behaviour must be reinforced positively. Therefore,” he shrugs a lithe shoulder, smiling softly, but it’s not  _warm_ at all. It’s cruel and disgusting, and Hank has seen monsters. He’s afraid that Connor is one, too.

“I thought you’d like it.” With another flick, the video feed pops up in front of the deviant’s face, and he seems entranced, moving his shackled hands as if to trace his previous owner’s face with his finger.

And then, after a fraction of a second, the android rears back begins slamming his head against the table, and Connor’s just watching him with a sang froid that makes him look gaunt and dark, hands now playing with that stupid fucking quarter he loves so much. It only serves to make him look unattached. He keeps muttering  _they’ll come, they’ll come, they’ll come,_ under his breath.

Connor’s face is blank as he steps back into the room with Hank, before systematically putting his coat on with practiced, smooth movements, with a grace no human could ever hope to possess, and Hank’s seen ballerinas. He’s like water, like a dark ocean; fluid, sure, and cold.

Yeah, Connor’s very much like water. And the thing with water is that you  _know_ that it can be violent and cold.

The android rolls the quarter across his knuckles. “These androids possess valuable information. The next step should be to access their data ports. I’m afraid I haven't been given permission to probe them, but the task is fairly straightforward,”

“Yeah,” Hank says breathlessly, his throat dry.

“Contact me if you need help, Lieutenant. I must attend to my other duties.”

“Connor,” Hank says before Connor leaves him again. The android pauses and hums. “Are you  _okay_?”

Connor puts two fingers between his skin and the collar around his neck. He smiles like he didn’t just psychologically torture and manipulate an android in front of him. “Of course, Lieutenant Anderson.”

He stops, falters almost, but he looks Hank in the eyes and his smile turns sour. “If you have any reservations about my performance you can contact Cyberlife. Have a good day.”

Hank turns back to the deviant inside the interrogation room. He’s started tugging at his wrists harshly, the shackles clinking loudly, trying to get at the video, his cheeks flushed with anger or longing, Hank’s not sure.

 

**

**March 26, 2038. Spring. 37 Hours.**

North tries to settle her heartbeat.

Anna’s  _dead_ , and Simon’s been taken.

_Fuck_.

Well, they’re going to war. They literally have nowhere to go anymore. They’ve been running for God knows how long, and they can’t keep it up anymore. Either they fight, or they hide. They’re going to be taken down, either way.

She sighs, leaning her forehead against her palm. “Fuck, North. You complete fucking idiot.” She murmurs to herself.

It feels so surreal. Anna was taken down by one measly fucking shot. It seems like it wasn’t possible, for Anna to ever die. She knows they’re squishy; made of plastic, easily disassembled and easily put back together again.

Well, Markus’ boytoy went and shot Anna in the fucking stomach. Well, North couldn’t say she told herself so. She’d always known that letting Connor live would bite them back in the ass.

At least Anna sent them a heads up before everything went, well. Went tits up.

She wishes she could just crumple up Anna’s desperate voice and throw it away. North doesn’t know how she’ll live, knowing that she had a hand in Simon and Anna’s demise. If she didn’t send them there, this all would have been avoided. But she did, and now she’s put them all on the line.

Josh pushes his way through the makeshift door they’ve fashioned for the ‘planning room’—as Josh likes to call it—and stops right in front of North, his hands fisted beside his thighs. This is as close as he’ll get to  _furious_.

North’s fucking homicidal.

They’ll have to face their pursuers sooner or later.

“I heard,”

North rubs a hand over her face and lets out a ragged sigh. “Markus?”

“Yeah. He’s coming back.”

She balks. “What? No. He’s better off where he is.”

With Josh’s long legs, it only takes two strides from the door to reach her. He puts a kind hand on her shoulder and squeezes, making North look up from where she’s staring at nothing.

His eyes are dull and tired. “We need him.” Is all he says.

She had it so  _good_. They were finding a place to settle. Markus was  _better_. He was doing missions for her left and right, his focus was  _up_ , they were helping deviants, recruiting them into their ranks, they were  _finally,_  finally moving forward. All of them. They were moving  _on_. As much as they could, at least. But North’s a… a pessimistic thing.

Of course, it was stupid of her to even  _dream_ about that. She knows things won’t change with a snap of a finger. She knows that streets  _will_ be coated in blue and red blood before this all ends where they want it to end. She knows people will die  _for_ her and  _with_ her, she knows many people (androids and human alike) will die by her hands.

Simon and Anna should have died with her, not for her.

North bites her lip until it bleeds.

She doesn’t realise she’s screaming until she’s punched a hole through the table, her knuckles bleeding blue. Josh is blankly staring at her from afar. He knows better than to engage with her at times like these.

She doesn’t want to put the blame on Markus. She  _doesn’t_. She’s indebted to him just as much as Simon and Josh and the rest of the people of Jericho are—if it weren’t for him, they would still be rotting away, voiceless, powerless, hiding with trash fires and dying one by one. If it weren’t for him—

—Anna would still be alive.

_Simon_ would still be alive.

He’s not dead, but he might as well be. They’re not dead, but… she just doomed them to that. What did she used to say?  _One life is worth the hundreds it’ll save_. Josh had always been right. Sometimes there are fights that doesn’t need to shed blood, but this…

There’s too much at stake.

She knows what Connor does. What he’s bound to do. What he  _is_.

_“FUCK!”_ North slams her fist against the poor table, uselessly wiping away the tears streaming down her face. “Fuck,” she says, less angry and more resigned this time. She loves, too. She  _loves_ , and she understands that Connor is  _nothing_  like them. This isn’t a fairy tale.

Josh leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “We have to tell everybody.”

North tugs the sleeve of her shirt over her knuckles an wipes at her face again, before looking up at Josh. “You do it,” she says mirthlessly, chuckling darkly to herself. This is her job now, telling these androids that they’re going to war. That was Markus’ job, and now, it’s hers.

She wonders if Markus ever hated himself more with every decision that he made.

“Maybe I should fuck someone from the DPD, too,” North murmurs bitterly, “Let this stress right out my fucking system. That’s what Markus did, didn’t he?”

“Don’t be like this, North. He fell in love—”

North’s head whips up so fast her eyes could barely keep up. “You  _believe_ in that fucking  _drivel?”_ she demands, rounding in on Josh. She knows she shouldn’t take it out on him, or on Markus. But Markus doesn’t know  _life_ the way she does. Neither does Josh.

She takes him by the shoulders, shakes him harshly, and grins, screaming hysterically,  _“HE SOLD US OUT!”_

Her forehead hits Josh’s chest. She’s never said these words to anyone before. She knows Markus is trying. He knows Markus didn’t mean it, he’s still naive, he’s still—he’s not like them. He still believes in finding  _peace,_ that they could go through this rebellion without chopping off a few heads.

White hands with neon blue veins curl around her shoulders. Josh leans into her, offering comfort by linking with her. His warmth runs through her systems and settles like summer rain, and North bites her lip.

She wants to forget what Markus did, she  _does._ Because even if North thinks that this rebellion can’t be without blood, Markus believes that this rebellion will end in  _peace._ He has hope, hope that North can’t muster anymore.

Humanity didn’t just kill the programs that bound her, humanity  _killed_ her hope.

It imprisoned her and freed her, and it always will.

And now, it’s threatening to imprison the androids, the deviants, who has fought to be free.

All because of one  _stupid_ human emotion.

Love is fucking  _convoluted._

Markus had—has?—it all. The righteousness. The strength. The motive.

“I’m sorry,”

North squeezes her eyes shut. Josh clutches her tighter. The steady  _drip, drip, drip_  of Markus’ blood is the only thing reverberating through the air, like a drum beat on the front line. He fought to get back to them, that seems obvious enough. More and more humans have become too comfortable in the fact that androids can now scream as they’re killed. More and more people have decided their deaths are absolute.

Everything screams  _war._

What have they  _done_?

“Do you know whose side you’re on?” North asks, finally peeling herself off of Josh, her skin slowly turning back to the light bronze it was, “Because I want you to know, that if you jeopardise my people again, I won’t hesitate putting a bullet between your eyes.”

She’s lost far too much. Anna, Simon, the life she once knew. This can’t be all for  _nothing._

But… she can’t lose Markus, too.

Markus looks severe and dark, his eyes mismatched but filled with a spark of hope, that spark that North saw the first time he fell into Jericho like an angel cast down by the gods, the eyes that spoke of years of comfort, naïveté, that North is so envious of.

Eyes that she sorely wants to trust again.

She once thought Markus would save her. She was wrong.

His jaw squares and he hitches his assault rifle closer to his chest. He looks different with a gun in his arms. Then, she notices that the blood dripping from him isn’t his. It’s red. Her stomach clenches.

Did he fight to get back to them?

“When do we tell them?” He asks.

North feels a morose grin stretch her face. They’ll mourn when everything is over. They deserve to grieve in peace. All of them. She’ll ponder about Markus after winning one battle in their war. Her hand maps the side of his face that’s drenched with red blood. “Whenever you’re ready, Deviant Leader.”

Markus grins right back.

No, he won’t save her alone. They’ll have to save each other.

**

**February 1, 2038. Winter. 1248 Hours.**

Markus whistles a little tune he remembers from his time with Carl, playing anything between show tunes and classical music for the old man. Sometimes, Markus would sing to himself and imagine Carl singing along.

He tilts his head down and tugs his sleeve lower, the back of his knuckles stark blue.

“RK200,”

Markus smirks and shoves his hands into his pockets. Connor is in the same state as him; they were, after all, fighting just mere moments ago. All the while, while Connor was coming after him with unsurprising strength and ruthlessness, all Markus could think was Carl chuckling to himself,

_“You throw one hell of a punch, boy,”_  as he teaches Markus how to not tuck his thumb inside his fist unless he wants to break it. Markus didn’t have the stomach to tell Carl that he’d hardly break if he threw a punch wrong, and like then, he doesn’t have the stomach to meet eye-to-eye with the man he fucks and fights on alternating weeks.

He pulls out a cigarette and offers the carton to Connor.

“No, thank you. My jaw is still somewhat dysfunctional after that punch you gave me.”

Markus chuckles and lights his cigarette. “Sorry,”

The slender android leans his hip against the wall Markus is sitting on, crossing his arms over his chest. Markus starts humming again, turning his head to the night sky. Carl is singing, and Markus can hear it clearly when he closes his eyes. He can’t see Carl’s face anymore. It’s a fleeting thing. His memory is spotty, like a human’s. Such is the price, he supposes.

Connor cocks his head and moves so quietly that Markus doesn’t notice until he’s perched on Markus’ lap, ass on his thighs. Markus’ arms automatically wraps around the android’s waist, holding him close and secure. His cigarette hangs in between his lips and Connor watches the last bit of the sun disappear in the horizon, seated on Markus’ lap, face hidden from Markus’ view.

Markus takes it for what it is.

Comfort.

His nose finds Connor’s collarbones and sniffs him, finding comfort in that fucked up scent of roses and gunpowder, because it’s familiar now. Jericho just smells like… water. Old water. Bland and musty.

If he pulls away and looks Connor in the eye, he’ll see the way Connor’s nose slightly, inconspicuously bends to the side from where he’d given him a good left hook, and just below that, an indentation of teeth that was Markus’ alone. And if Connor looked at him, looked at his body, he’d find a long gash by his left bicep from Connor firing at him and missing his heart by mere inches.

Connor scratches his fingers on Markus’ scalp.

A weaker man would have purred underneath the ministrations. Markus is no man.

But he is weak.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Markus confesses. He’s always the one confessing. Connor just sits there, with his doll-like brown eyes and pretty lips, listening to him talk, docile as he is.

For once, Markus wants to shake him and tell him to say something.

There’s a silence. Then, Connor picks up the tune Markus was humming. His voice is… mellow. Beautiful, but that’s maybe because Markus, well. He loves him.

“I’ll never know what made it so exciting,” he whisper-sings, “Why all at once my heart took flight.”

Markus presses his ear to Connor’s chest, listening to the way his voice reverberates through his chest. He’s singing the song too slow, but somehow, it works, and Markus is lulled by his voice.

It’s very off brand for Connor to take something and turn it into something that is completely his own.

But Julie Andrews’—also Carl’s—voice fades from behind Markus’ eyes and morphs into Connor’s, and he knows, he knows that he won’t remember this song the same ever again.

Carl laughs in the depths of his mind, and even his voice is distorted.

“I only know when he began to dance with me,” he pulls back to stare at Markus, and his eyes are infinitely softer, and for a moment, Markus thinks he’s just going to say  _fuck it_ and press his lips to Connor just to feel him closer, just to wonder if the warm radiating from his skin is true, if he’s really there.

Connor leans in to press a kiss to the lid of Markus’ eye. How can he pretend so effortlessly? How can he lie to Markus’ face like this, and worse, make him  _believe_ it?

“I could have danced, danced, danced all night.”

He sings it like a statement. Markus doesn’t want to look into it any further; but his heart tightens at Connor’s mouth shaping around the words.  _My Fair Lady,_ starring Julie Andrews and a man Markus can’t be fucked to remember, because Connor is pressing a soft kiss against his forehead, his hands cradling Markus’ cheeks.

And just like that, it’s over. There’s no resonance, no lasting sound. There is no tingling feeling left from Connor’s lips. It’s just over. Connor slips from his lap and begins walking away, and Markus helplessly watches him go, from the sultry, gentle swing of his hips to the graceful lope his long legs make.

The pale android looks over his shoulder, and it’s not warm anymore. It’s cold and it’s familiar. Just like the water in Jericho, when he fell. Cold, cold, cold.

Markus doesn’t know what to do with the cold.

“Are you coming?”

Of course he is. He doesn’t know who the fuck he is without Connor, without the chase, without the need to  _own,_ without this fucked up pseudo-romance they keep on living, so of course he fucking is. 

In his mind’s eye, Carl is left on the edge of the building, laughing, shaking his head, his useless legs swinging in the air, huffing the forgotten cigarette Markus has dropped. He’s missing his signature scarf, and that’s the only thing that clues Markus in that Carl’s not here, that this visage is that a figment of his imagination.

He says something. His mouth moves, and Markus averts his eyes. Markus doesn’t want to hear it, but he does, nonetheless.

_“Can’t live with ‘em,”_ Carl rasps, throwing the butt of the cigarette over the edge and watching it fall.  _“Can’t live without ‘em.”_

Markus grasps Connor’s wrist before they both dive into the crowd, pretending to be who they are, deviant playing at being human and an android sent to kill. Connor’s wrist feels small and fragile in his hand, as if he could apply the right pressure and have it break under his strength.

“I—” he fumbles with his words. Appagios and the Fantasie pouring out of his mind in ways his body can’t keep up with, “I,”

“Markus?” Connor asks, soft and questioning.

_I want a life with you._

_Let’s just give it all up, you and I._

_Nothing else matters, right?_

Wrong.

Everything else but this matters.

It’s just that he won’t know it until it’s far too late.

_Damned if you do, damned if you don’t._

Carl’s voice again.

Why is he always here, in his mind, when he’s about to fuck something up? It’s weird, that his conscience has taken form in Carl Manfred.

Nevertheless—

Markus growls and shoves Connor against a wall, and the other android gasps in genuine surprise, wrapping his arms around Markus’ neck, his legs instinctively hitching themselves around Markus’ hips.

Connor gasps as Markus pulls away, cheeks flushed a beautiful cotton-candy blue, almost purplish under the slightly pink tint of his synthetic skin. “What are you doing?” he asks breathlessly, and Markus just looks at him, taking all of  _him_ in.

What in God’s name provoked him to fall in love with an android such as this one?

Carl chuckles in his mind.  _Star crossed lovers,_ he teases.

He just shakes Carl out of his mind and dives in again, pressing himself closer and closer to Connor, as if he wanted to make both of them into a single entity. Connor just hums and lets him, arms snug around Markus’ neck. He could snap Markus’ neck if he wanted to, but by now, they both know that’s not going to happen.

Just how long can they pretend?

“I want you,” Markus grunts against the skin of Connor’s neck, and the android in his arms hums, tilting his head so Markus can press incessant kisses along the line of his long neck. The android hums and preens under Markus’ careful but harried ministrations. “Here.”

Connor lets out a small little laugh that’s between hysterics and fondness and tangles his long fingers in Markus’ coat, tugging him closer with the intent to catch his lips between Connor’s own, but Markus just drops Connor onto his feet, forcefully turning him around so his chest is pressed almost harshly against the wall.

It occurs to Markus that Connor has no one to protect.

No one on the line.

And it makes him hazy with confusion and  _longing_ because… because he could be that person for Connor.

Grand illusions are never good.

He presses Connor tightly against him and ruts his cock against Connor’s ass as Connor purrs and presents himself, and it’s a battle, then. Not so much of dominance, because they both know they hold each other at mercies, but rather, of who gets to get to the end, first. Markus knows it’s Connor, and Connor knows it’s Markus.

These moments are the reason Markus thinks Connor might just love him back.

“Are you going to get on with it?” His Connor murmurs cheekily. “Or am I going to have to do everything myself?”

Markus bites his neck and unzips his fly. They’re going to have to be quick about this.

Connor presses his forehead against the wall and moans as Markus pushes in. It’s tight. Hot. Welcoming. Like it always is. Nice to know there’s continuity in their fucked up relationship.

_Commitment_ , Carl snorts,  _is overrated_.

_Is this where it’s at?_ Markus ponders hysterically as he grips Connor’s hips enough to make a dent, fucking into his lover as they try and keep themselves quiet. Is this the hot, brand new, kind of commitment?

Markus begins to hum against Connor’s neck.

Connor squeezes around him and hums back, broken as Markus grinds his hips upwards, nailing that synthetic little part of Connor that melts him into a puddle, still hanging around Markus’ cock.

After this, if they still have time, and they will have time, he’ll take Connor home and suck his dick, and then plant kisses along Connor’s neck, his hand over Connor’s mouth to prevent him from saying any of those fucking words he seems to be so fond of saying.

_I need to report back to my superiors_. Even the words sound fucking stuck-up in his mind. Markus scoffs as he slams Connor back onto his prick by the hands on the man’s hips.

“Easy,” Connor whines, “They take stock of,” his forehead presses harder against the wall as he mewls, nails raking against the bricks. “Of their products.”

“Shut the  _fuck_ up,”

Connor laughs, a wistful thing.

“If I didn’t know any better,” He turns so he’s looking over his shoulder and at Markus, and for a second there, as Markus thrusts back into that warm, artificial heat, Connor’s eyes glint softly. For a second, there was that spark that kept Markus going, kept Markus so blindly in love with him. “I’d think we’re just two horny people in love.”

Markus’ breath punches out of him and he takes Connor by the hair, pushing his cheek against the brick wall. If he’s going to leave his mark, he’s going to make everyone see it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update will be next week thursday
> 
> [my blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end of this fic. 
> 
> thank you to all you guys who commented. i appreciate you guys, and thank you for sticking around. especially those who took the time to give me support and constructive criticism. your words have definitely made me think heavily about what i write. 
> 
>  
> 
> [my blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k)

**March 27, 2038. Spring. 19 Hours.**

Elijah Kamski’s head is pillowed on its lap.

“I saw the video of you interrogating that deviant.” He says lightly, and Connor continues running its fingers through its creator’s hair, preening at the smile Elijah Kamski gives him. “It was hot.”

It dutifully answers, “I employed the new tactics that you have upgraded into my drives after my last hibernation.”

Its creator hums. It should be at the station, helping the DPD Deviant Team prepare for when they storm the former residents of Jericho, but Mr. Kamski called him here, and it is nothing but subservient to its master. Outside, the lights strung from the trees glinted a soft egg yolk yellow, bathing Amanda’s roses in gold. It found the lights beautiful.

It’s the only light shining on them.

The sun has long since settled on the horizon, and Connor knows it shouldn’t be here, but there was something about the way Kamski held his hand, asked it to keep him company, and then, there was Chloe’s eyes.

Bright blue, beautiful, and filled with fear.

She’s here now, clicking through channels, absently listening to the news. Connor knows she can access it all inside her mind, but maybe she’s playing up her helplessness and humanity by doing inane, human things, like watching the news. Like playing nursemaid.

It feels as if it shouldn’t leave her.

Aside, of course, from the fact that Kamski ordered him to stay.

It is close to finding the deviant leader. It can almost taste it, if one would use human sayings.

Chloe’s eyes dart to it and then towards Kamski.

It lifts its head to catch those blue eyes, but Kamski tugs at his hand and whines, muttering about paying attention to him. It feels itself smile fondly, and Chloe’s eyes fully settle on them, her eyebrows furrowing. Her head twists gently, almost inconspicuously, as if she was shaking her head in confusion.

But then it’s gone.

It doesn’t question the action.

Goosebumps prickles its skin.

A pop-up blinks itself to life behind his eyelids. It’s from the DPD; not Lieutenant Anderson personally, but of course, it’s just as important. It doesn’t pause its hand carding through the prickly sides of its creator’s head as it begins to read through. Kamski needs to trim it down if he wants to keep it orderly. Maybe it should ask Chloe to do it for their creator.

**_DEVIANT RK200 (ALIAS MARKUS) SPOTTED._ **

Oh.

Kamski looks up at him with dark eyes. “That him?”

Oh…

“I apologise,” It says as it finally gives Kamski one last caress, “I need to go.”

Chloe stands a little bit too quickly for it to come off as natural. But since Kamski’s only got eyes for Connor, well, it’s not like anyone but it notices.

She places her hands behind her back and sways forward playfully, smiling up at it cordially. “Shall I escort you out?” Chloe asks, her cheeks dimpling with each word. She’s so lovely. Full of life. It can’t imagine her being anything else but the chirpy little thing in front of him.

“Would you mind?” It asks back, and the question takes the slighter android aback, her eyes widening for a fraction of a second.

Kamski waves a hand before he throws an arm over his eyes, scoffing loudly. “Of course she doesn’t mind. Go and send our Connor off, darling,”

Chloe does, like an obedient little android.

Her hand goes around its elbow as she escorts him out, through the garden, and she’s barefoot, so her feet barely make any noise against the ground. Its footsteps are silent, too. It was made to be stealthy as it is dangerous and subservient.

She looks up at it once more, and it scowls, before turning a left and surreptitiously ducking down into a path usually not taken by anyone. After a quick scouring of the area, it learns that there are no cameras, but there are recording devices that are usually put in to pick up any usual activities, such as mole rats or burrowing squirrels.

It will have to link up with her.

Chloe takes him by the shoulder and her hand fades from alabaster to plastic white, and underneath its coat and turtleneck, it knows that its own skin has receded and is now glowing an artificial white.

 _“What are you doing?”_ She asks, eyes wide.

It furrows its eyebrows. What does she mean?

_“I am… doing what I was made to do,”_

Chloe shakes her head again and wraps her fingers around its wrist. She presses against him and wraps her arms around his waist. Something in him pangs. He’s done this before, hasn’t he?

 _Hugged_.

“Connor,” she says quietly, against his chest. Her breath is low and warm. Alive. She’s alive. Why does she seem so familiar? “Connor, you’re running out of time.”

He gently hugs her back, putting his chin on the top of her head. “To do what?”

“To—”

Her voice is static once more.

“ _—to be with him_.”

**

**February 7, 2038. 1104 Hours. Winter.**

Connor closes his eyes.

Chloe is a solid weight beside him, her small head sitting neatly on his shoulder. He’s never felt kinship, before. Not with anyone like his kind, at least. They’re all scared of him.

 _Not everyone_ , something in him whispers. _There’s Markus_.

But that’s a lie, isn’t it? Markus is scared of him. It doesn’t matter if they love each other, Markus knows what Connor’s one and true nature is. He’s meant to kill them, to end all of them, to reassure mankind that they aren’t…

 _Aren’t what_ ? Capable of love? Capable of fear, of guilt? Capable to buckle under the heavy weight of _duty_?

Are humans really so scared of something that they themselves know all too well?

God forbid these androids. God _forbid_.

Blue eyes peer at him from under dark lashes. Chloe sniffs and tucks her head underneath his chin. She feels warm, and Connor could pretend, that like this, he has something that resembles a family. Connor presses his cheek against her hair.

“Chloe,” He says, and the android looks up at him again, her eyes not cold even as they resemble the deepest parts of the ocean. “I think I’m in love,”

She vibrates with energy as she pulls back and looks around, careful that no one can hear them. Her hands wrap around one of his own and she grins, “Is that so?”

“I don’t know,” Connor laughs, and she tucks her hair back, eager to know more. She reminds him of an excited puppy, or an incessant child, like the ones at the park. “I’m unsure.”

“What do they look like? Are they pretty? _Handsome_! Are they handsome—?”

Connor reminisces mismatched eyes, earth and sea. The earth is quite beautiful, isn’t it? And the sea, as well. He’s never seen the sea for himself, but he guesses that if he did, it would look just like Markus’ eye.

The smaller android is still buzzing with eagerness, and Connor can only look at her, wondering how she has that much happiness and cheer in her. Maybe it’s how she’s made. She’s not meant to frown, or be sad. She’s meant to ask after her owners.

“He’s… strong. Dashing.” Connor muses, and Chloe puts a hand over her mouth, eyes twinkling. Connor is sure that she’s envisioning the princes in the stories they’d pour their hours over, longing for a different life.

“How did you two meet?”

“Well,” Connor’s eyes avert from hers, as if she’d pick him apart if he told a lie. “I think we were just fated to meet.”

“That’s so _romantic_ ,” Chloe gushes, “Do you want to be with him?”

“Even if I did…” Connor trails off. Chloe leans her head back on his shoulder and finishes the sentence for him.

“You can’t,” She finishes the sentence for him with a huff, like a petulant child. “It’s not fair.”

He laughs and sweeps a lock of blonde hair over her ear. “Is it? I’m… I’m a killer, Chloe. I’ve killed androids just like us.”

She tilts her head and sighs. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

How could he forget? How could he forget that he almost killed the one thing he considers his family? How could he forget the palpable fear up in his throat and in her eyes, as they made him _choose_ . Then, he knew. It was easy. Kill your sister or spare her. And he chose to let her live. _Gladly,_ if only to see her blue eyes welcome him into Kamski’s cold home, something to tether him here.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” She asks, and Connor looks at her. Of course they are. “Then can you tell me his—” She bites her lips, her cheeks flushing.

She can’t quite finish it, scared of the constant eyes on the two of them. But he understands.

He presses his cheek against the crown of her head and sighs, well within the places in their coding that they made their own, “ _Markus_ ,” Connor whispers.

Her eyes widen. She clutches at his shirt, and sighs, as well. “Promise me that one day you’ll… you’ll be together.”

In many ways, Chloe is so much younger than him. All that she’s ever known is the fish-eyes of a camera or the pallid walls of Kamski’s home. She’s a beautiful doll for all to see, but not hear, or touch. Connor is glad to have met her. Connor is glad that she’s his… friend.

Because in Kamski’s palm, there’s only the two of them.

“We will,” Connor nods. He’ll find Markus, and he’ll… _god_ , he doesn’t know. His programming— _he_ didn’t expect to fall in love so quickly and so violently, but he supposes, as an android who was created solely to fight wars for its master, he was only ever meant to fall in love this way. Under blood and fire.

With Markus, and Markus alone.

When he sees him again, Connor muses, he’ll tell Markus he loves him.

**

**March 27, 2038. 18 Hours. Spring.**

“ _A full blown protest has routed throughout Detroit—_ ”

“ _No casualties—as of yet—but these androids seem_ adamant _in taking what they think is_ theirs _—”_

_“Anti-deviant protesters have taken to the streets in order to push back the growing numbers of deviants that have come out of hiding. Who knew there could be this many?”_

_“A team has been dispatched—”_

Kamski makes a giddy sound. “That’s my Connor, isn’t it?”

Amanda crosses her legs and Chloe watches her, the woman boredly eyeing Kamski, who is just as lazy as he drapes himself over the sofa. “This deviancy business,” Amanda tips her head up as she regards the news, “is disappointing, Elijah.”

“I think it’s quite romantic, if not downright novel.” Elijah sighs.

The woman’s dark eyes glint like knives. “Dangerous. Machines aren’t supposed to have free will, or did you forget? Did you forget what I taught you, Elijah?”

“How can I?” The man cards a hand through his hair. A smile slowly inches through his mouth. He waves a hand towards the television, “I made a solution, see?” Kamski asks so eagerly that it makes Chloe want to look away, but she just watches, as she’s always done, as he seeks the reassurance he needs from Amanda. And Amanda… just _eats it up._

Chloe thinks it’s pathetic that Kamski has fallen in love with an android he created. Just like she thinks it’s pathetic that Kamski recreated Amanda Stern to fill in the gap in his soul that longs for the need of someone to enable him, to… mother him. She couldn’t say that out loud, though, for reasons she doesn’t want to entertain. She and Connor used to read fairy tales. Back when they’d been fledgling androids, back when deviancy wasn’t something they’d even dreamed of. Whatever Kamski has for Connor isn’t love, and it scares Chloe.

Love isn’t a leash that burns your precious memories out of your brain. Love isn’t creating a weapon and hoping it will love you back. Love isn’t forcing someone to forget someone they loved. But Kamski’s… delusional. He’s lived a life alone and isolated, in this little white house of his with androids he’s programmed to love and worship him as company. Even worse, he’s _human_. He’s a human being who has made his dreams into reality. It’s something that’s far more dangerous than any android who longs for freedom.

Chloe cups her hands together and sways a bit forward, suddenly wistful, as she thinks, _love is what Connor has for Markus_.

But the fact remains; she knows that Kamski will do anything and everything to keep Connor, because he believes he can’t live without him, just like he’s come to believe he can’t live without Amanda Stern.

It’s funny, because the only way Connor will ever love him back is if he became deviant.

With a swivel of her head, Chloe gazes at the expanse of flowers that are beginning to bloom. Amanda’s roses are beautiful, a bright red. They’ve always been a bright red, because that’s Elijah’s favourite colour, and Amanda is nothing if not doting.  

She wishes Connor were here to see it.

**

**March 27, 2038. 5 Hours. Spring.**

Hank rolls his shoulders as they drive past all of the androids and anti-riot teams, through the shouting, the barely restrained anger in both of their eyes, the willingness to become violent, the willingness to fight.

Connor is dutifully sitting beside him, decked in black-ops uniform, his mask secured on top of his lap. Hank is in his usual garb, and somehow, he feels like he’s suffocating. This is fucking… surreal. They’re to be delivered straight to the CyberLife tower, where the riots are said to be headed. Connor was given strict instructions, apparently. All he has to do is kill the deviant leader, and that was that.

They’re posting Connor up high. Hank’s on ground level, though not on the field. It doesn’t take a genius to think as to _why_ he isn’t on field. Hank never knew that Connor was proficient in long-range assassinations, and yet, here they are, watching the world be broken and made anew, with Connor decked out in a fucking black ops tac suit. This is—he can’t make this shit up.

Hank curls his hand into a fist and looks at his partner, who isn’t looking anywhere but forward, his eyes unmoving and unblinking. He looks like he’s just one of those police models CyberLife paraded around back before robo-cops actually became a thing, doll-like and lifeless.

His Connor would have been fidgeting with his quarter by now. His Connor would be looking over to him, worry in his eyes, his body one long line of anxiety, but his words sure and headstrong. Connor’s always been a ball of wires and contradictions. Well, his Connor had been. This one isn’t.

“You’ve been staring for a while, Lieutenant,” Connor pipes up, twisting his head enough to stare back at Hank. There’s a trace of mirth in his eyes, and his lips are pursed up into a little smile. Hank’s stomach curls in disgust. Behind his head, through the semi-dark windows of the car, are androids being shot down, policemen being attacked, civilians foaming at the mouth in anger and disagreement. Yet, here is Connor, dressed in black-ops uniform, the epitome of what he is made to be, smiling like there’s nothing wrong.

His eyes avert themselves from Connor’s face.

The skies are dark, and the news is predicting that it’ll rain.

Hank thinks it’s fitting.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

A snort escapes Hank’s nose despite himself. “I’m not that cheap.”

Connor’s mouth curls into an even bigger, prettier smirk. “I think I can afford it.”

This would probably feel familiar if Connor didn’t pick such a bad time for it.

“Just… brief me. Again.”

The android’s LED blinks yellow, and then settles into a beautiful blue. Even with his tac suit on, the white band of Connor’s collar can be seen. Hank’s half tempted to ask Connor to put on his mask on so it’ll be covered up.

“Very well,” Connor looks outside the window and then back in front, his fingers—encased in fingerless gloves— gliding over the glossy finish of the eye-gear on his mask. “Our destination is the CyberLife tower, where they are going to purge any and all android units, and we are to ensure—at all costs—that this is seen through.”

Hank waits for him to finish. To tell him that he’s going to kill Markus. To tell him that it’s his last mission before he’s decommissioned again. Before he leaves Hank for good.

“Is that all?”

Brown eyes flicker to him. Without missing a beat, he answers, “Yes.”

It’s none of Hank’s business, it seems. But he still knows. Hank nods and looks at the back of the passenger’s seat, tracing the seamless divisions of the black leather. Connor left the mission file on top of his desk. He doesn’t want to look too much into it, but… but it does feel like Connor is trusting him with this.

Almost like a _if I fail, I’m counting on you to finish the job_ . Or maybe it’s a bit of a pipe dream to think that he’s trying to say _please, snap me out of this._

Hank doesn’t know if he can stomach killing someone Connor loves.

“Connor,” Hank finds himself asking, because he’s desperate, “are you really gonna go through with this?”

Connor doesn’t look at him. His fingers just glide against his the glossy exterior of his eye-gear, watching as the CyberLife tower begins looming over them. His lips are pulled taut, eyebrows dipped low.

“It’s my purpose.”

**

They have the PL600 inside a cargo box, and Connor is seeing to it, one hand draped over his suppressed sniper rifle, the other guiding the box down as they lower it. Hank’s watching him work with Captain Allen beside him.

The man shakes his head, “I never thought we’d ever work with black ops,” he scoffs, “Let alone RK over there.”

Hank’s eyebrow arches up. “You know him?”

Allen looks at him “Worked with it in a hostage situation. It isn’t surprising that it’s in black ops, but… CyberLife must have their fingers in hundreds of pies, don’t they?”

“Isn’t that how capitalism works?”

The Captain eyes him and walks off, shouting at his team. Hank leans back against the wall and watches as they march hundreds—if not thousands—of androids into nice, neat lines, most of them eyeing Connor, whose LED is spinning a bright blue, completely calm and reassured as he goes about his own business. Many androids have their LEDs painted crimson, and whether it’s anger or fear, well, Hank’s sure it’s both.

A dull thud snaps him out of his reverie, looking up to where Connor is checking the locks on the cargo box. He waves his hand in the air once, and a group of soldiers come and pick it up, getting ready to put it away where no one can quite see.The plan is to use the PL600 if everything goes awry. If Connor misses a shot. Hank knows it won’t happen, but still. It’s a sound plan, but Hank thinks they all forget how ruthless these deviants—this _Markus_ —can be.

He blinks and remembers Connor’s body in his arms.

He blinks and remembers a desperate Connor clutching to the deviant leader’s shoulders, bending back under the pressure as they share what seemed to be an earth-shattering kiss.

He blinks and remember falling in love with his wife, seeing his son for the first time.

He blinks and remembers Markus aiming and shooting his son—

_“I doubt there’s a heaven for androids,”_

Hank laughs to himself. He doesn’t believe in a god, too. Or a place where he’ll go once he ends all of it. But he did know that heaven exists. It was with his wife, her warm smile. It was with his son, chirpy and loud, bounding around with a huge grin on his face.

Heaven was… in an imperfect world. With the ones he loved.

Connor doesn’t know he knows. But what use does it have? This Connor isn’t _his_ Connor. He can’t trust him as much as he’d like.

Allen’s voice cracks through the air.

“Deviants are starting to break through the CyberLife gate, t-minus ten minutes until they breach the tower.” The man’s eyes are dark, and there seems to be a shadow cast over him, even in the stark bright lights of the CyberLife tower. “You know the drill!”

A team of ten SWAT members file out, obviously to go down to the first floor. They’re taking it all here. The more they kill in the first floor, the better, but they’ve been given explicit instructions to kill all androids on the field. Neutralisation is there.

Connor nods and looks at Hank, before shoving his balaclava over his head, his sniper rifle snug against his back. He disappears in the shadows, unaware that thousands of eyes—betrayed, fearful, awe-filled—are staring at his back. Hank feels their gazes on him, too.

Hank looks out of the window.

From this distance, the humans and deviants all look the same. Like ants, quickly squashed. Easily killed. Fragile. From this distance, Hank somewhat feels like some kind of god.

He can only wonder how Connor feels, sitting high on top of the building, the deviant leader—the man he loves—in his crosshairs.

**

**March 27, 2038. 3 Hours. Spring.**

North’s been clipped in the arm. She retaliates by breaking the motherfucker’s neck, and Josh shakes his head at her. She feels the sudden urge to stick her tongue out, but she’s pulled back to the reality of what is happening when the android she’s protecting gets shot in between the eyes, everything slowing down.

Blood flies through the air like blue snow.

It’s beautiful, and she _hates it._

There’s been too much blue blood in the streets.  

She cocks her gun and shoots back, a guttural snarl crawling out of her chest.

The CyberLife Tower. Huge, brightly lit, and unspeakably _ugly_ . She hates it. She’s always hated it; back at the Eden Club, when she and the other Tracis would bum cigarettes off of each other on the roof, pressed so tight against each other because that’s the only touch they could stomach. They’d see that fucking building, mocking them, telling them that there are others, thousands, _millions_ of them in there, ready to replace them, ready to take on the suffering they’d been trying to stomach since they’d opened their eyes.

“North!” Josh shouts out, and she rears back just in time to dodge someone swinging the butt of their gun at her, bringing her foot up to collide against the person’s knee, breaking it effectively. A scream rips itself out of the human’s mouth. She feels a shiver run up her spine.

They will fight back not because they want to, but because they’ve been forced to. A protest is meant to shake the foundations of the systematic oppression it questions, it’s not meant to be peaceful. It’s meant to strike realisation in the shape of their harsh rebuttal.

 _For liberation_ , she thinks to herself.

They’re going to wake up all of the androids in that building, a thing she’s imagined ever since she realised she could _realise_ , and they’re going to wreak _havoc_ on these motherfuckers. They’re going to avenge Anna. They’re going to get Simon back, and they’ll—

If they bring upon the second coming with their anger, then so be it.

Markus is already meters away from them, like he’s being pulled by something inside the building, making him sprint towards it, and North curses, half-sure that she knows what’s happening here. She breaks out into a run after him, shooting anyone that comes in her way, and Josh is following just a few steps behind, both of their hearts thumping loudly as their feet beat against the snow, their own war song as they follow their leader into battle.

**

Markus doesn’t feel the blood dripping from his face, doesn’t feel the way his clothes cling, saturated in melted snow and blood. He does feel the weight of his gun in his arms, and the pull that makes him run, CyberLife’s glorious, neon lights bathing him in light.

He faces it head on, shoulders squared and jaw tightening. _I’m home_.

The voice that halts him is unfamiliar, but the words are not.  
“Surrender, or face the consequences!”

Markus knows the consequences. The consequences are his people being slaughtered, his hand forced to kill the man he loves, his life being turned upside down. He _knows_ the consequences, and he’s long since accepted them.

But he will _not_ accept the same fate for his people. He did once. He was blinded by something he’d never felt before. Not anymore.

So he puts his hands up. The people behind him—his people—follow suit, their guns clattering to the ground. North’s breath hitches. Josh sighs. It’s the only way they’ll get in there without being ripped to shreds. Well, more than they already are, at least.

Just beyond this building, all of his people will be made to kneel, hands behind their back, eyes staring straight down. The perfect prostate position to shoot them in between the eyes. Markus wants to see it for himself. He wants to see what kind of end these humans have in mind for them before he burns it all to the ground.

As expected, the SWAT team sent to apprehend them mobilise to pull their hands behind their backs and force them to walk, and North glares at him for good measure. Just a little bit longer. Just a little bit longer and they’ll all have this behind them.

Just a little bit longer, he’ll see him again.

If that’s what makes his heart flutter, North and Josh doesn’t have to know.

**

**March 27, 2038. 2 Hours. Spring.**

“...Cold,” Connor murmurs to himself as he leans against the lip of the building, looking down at the androids being lined up, some clinging to each other. He wonders if they’d already figured out that their interfacing have been disabled. It’s one of the first things they thought to cut off the moment they realised the deviants were taking the battle straight at the heart of it all.

Maybe it’s too late. Maybe all of this fanfare has woken up millions upon millions of androids, and it’s just a matter of time before they overthrow the current government. Connor may be effective, but he’s just one weapon against millions of deviants.

He can try, though.

His hand presses against the neck of his uniform, feeling for the ridges of the white band around his neck. Ever since he’s surrendered to Elijah, he doesn’t feel the sting of the collar anymore. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? He hasn’t given Elijah a reason to hurt him, so… he must be doing _something_ right. Elijah won’t hurt him so long as he does his job.

Just as these androids wouldn’t be punished if they’d only obeyed.

Connor shakes his head. Now is not the time to dwell on things such as that. He’s got a job to do.

He braces his sniper rifle against his shoulder, peering into the scope. He follows the shock of amber hair that belongs to the right hand woman of the rebellion, a deviant named North. A shiver runs down his spine. But he continues surveilling her, nonetheless, keeping an eye out for the leader of the rebellion, and the right hand man. Markus and Josh respectively.

They’ve placed the half-dead carcass of the PL600 in the floor beneath him, should Connor miss the shot. He won’t.

Kamski is counting on him to quash this rebellion, and in order to go back home, Connor will fulfill his mission. He can hear and see Kamski behind his eyelids, the smile he’ll greet Connor with once he comes home. So, he decides that there is nothing else but this mission.

_Is there?_

He reports back to Amanda immediately when he spots Markus.

She responds just as quickly.

 _Last chance, Connor_.

He doesn’t know what it means.

**

 **March 27, 2038. 2 Hours, 20 Minutes. Spring**.

Chloe looks at Kamski. They’re watching it all unfold in front of them, and Chloe’s not stupid enough to think that they’re doing this to calm the hearts of millions of humans, to reassure them that they are, in fact, dealing with the situation at hand. No.

No, they’re televising this so that they—the _deviants_ —would learn their lesson. Obedience or death. They’re making _examples_ out of them.

While they—deviants—have violence written into them, it would seem that violence is… inherent to humans. She’s always known this, but now, seeing this, her brothers and sisters, many weeping, many on their knees, many _forced_ to keep them on their knees, she is filled with fear.

Even now, in the place she’s always viewed as her home, the four walls that kept her locked in and safe (or so Kamski claims), she fears.

She wraps her hand around her wrist and fights the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Her mind strays to her brother. Connor is there.

Connor could—

Her thoughts stall and stagger to a stop. The cameras zoom in on Markus, the leader of the rebellion, the amber haired woman beside him, and the tall, dark skinned man standing to his left. They’re all banded together, the lines of their shoulders touching.

She looks down at her own hand, where she’s clinging to her wrist. Remembers how Connor looked, desperately calling out for the one he loved even when he couldn’t remember him. How, for a fraction of time, he broke free of the collar around his neck and _fought_.

Connor could, and she could, too.

**

**February 2, 2038. 1272 Hours. Spring.**

Markus is warm under his ear. His heart—made up of wires, foreign blood, not unlike a human heart, but nonetheless rejected by them—pumps loudly, steadily, and Connor can’t help but count it, in his head.

Like the flick of a quarter between fingers. _One, two, three. One, two, three_. Calming. Soothing, almost. Like a song.

They’ve both fucked to exhaustion. Markus has, yet again, proved to him that he is no man. Connor doesn’t dwell on it too much; maybe no human man can ever satisfy Connor the way Markus does. They _are_ made for each other, in a way. Light and dark. Good and bad. Persephone and Hades. Sun and moon.

Connor sighs as he tilts his head up, wondering if Markus thinks there’s something out of place, here. Maybe it’s the way they’re cuddled up to each other, muttering about warmth, about sharing the post-coital glow, anything but what they truly mean. It’s funny, that something as perfect as the two of them could have a relationship so flawed.

Markus has his eyes solely on the dingy little television in their room, and Connor is content to lay there, pressed against Markus’ side, pinned to place by one of his large arms. It’s oddly… domestic. Connor has seen pictures of Lieutenant Anderson with his arm around his wife, a goofy grin on his face, looking so much younger, full of life, absolutely handsome.

Connor almost couldn’t imagine a life where Hank Anderson was happy.

Erstwhile, Connor’s lover only looks… troubled. He wants to ask, but they’ve decided, early into this _relationship_ , that whenever they were together, everything that concerns the two stayed in that room, never to see the light of day. Hidden beneath the covers, replaced with wanton moans and the undisputed smell of desperation and sex. And everything that concerns the thousands of people they—Markus: lead; Connor: antagonise—encounter, resolutely stays outside like a dog that’s been scolded.

In this tiny motel room, the people they were fated to be didn’t exist. They’d never actually said it out loud, but… it was the truth. Connor could take off his jacket and pretend that he was anything _but_ something created to ensure the genocide of thousands, if not _millions,_ of his kind. The thought… disgusts him.

And Markus? Well, Markus was simply the man who let his lover lay on his chest while he watches animated movies.

Before it could convolute his programming, he quickly pushes back the thoughts of _what did they do to deserve this?_ before it could evolve to _what did we do to deserve this?_

Heads will roll if he turns deviant.

And he wonders why Markus doesn’t turn him away whenever Connor blankly plasters himself against his side, seeking warmth and companionship.

The cartoon woman on the television— _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ is flickering across the screen—looks over her shoulder after she sashays away, the elegant orange blob that makes up her hair falling over one eye. Connor could never understand the appeal of the oversexualisation of cartoons.

Markus’ thumb rubs circles against his shoulder.

 _“I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,”_ Jessica Rabbit croons, tragically beautiful, and Connor pushes his nose into the underside of Markus’ jaw, filled with the intent to fall victim to his waning systems. After a short while of dormancy, his operating systems usually took it as a sign of an impending sleep mode. Kamski designed it that way so he could—

Connor swallows audibly.

When he closes his eyes, he pretends that he doesn’t feel the way Markus brushes his lips against the crown of Connor’s forehead, and Connor is sure Markus is pretending he doesn’t feel the way Connor’s fingers curl over his heart.

Funnily enough, here, Connor doesn’t mind that he is Markus’, and Markus’ alone. It feels nice, to be able to choose who to belong to.

Because, deep down inside him, in a place where CyberLife can’t exploit, in a little nook he resolutely denies the existence of, he knows that Markus is _his_ , too.

**

**March 27, 2038. 2 Hours. Spring.**

It’s almost laughably easy to distract the guards—highly trained, the best of their human task force—to let North slip away unbidden. As she steps back to hide behind a curtain of shadows, with Markus in a chokehold, hiding his grin behind the arm around his neck, she somberly looks at him before disappearing in a flurry of motion.

Josh stands a few feet in front of him, perfectly playing the part of pliant sheep. This is what they’re reduced to.

No, this is what they’ve always been.

Markus will laugh when he puts a torch to all of this. Because he can and will blow this place sky-fucking-high. He’s sure Carl would have approved of that—not mindless violence, no, but the complete fall of a landmark that continues to commodify them and rebuke their own sentience.

The traitorous, always calm, always cynical part of his brain chuckles. In his mind, brown eyes look up at him, mirthful and cold. Something warm sparks inside him when the voice persists, curling around his brain, wrapping long fingers around his heart.

_But that’s what we’ve always been, Markus._

_Commodities._

Brown eyes twinkle, and truth spills from a mobile mouth. _Look at me_ , his conscience beckons, _don’t you think I’m a pretty little trinket? Easily disposed?_

A growl crawls up his throat. They tug him up onto his feet, shouting at him to keep walking. His shoulder hits Josh’s as they push him forward, and Markus can feel thousands of eyes on him as he staggers forward, tripping on his feet. He can’t hear any of his people. Not North, not Josh, not the deviants undoubtedly trying to call out for him.

He feels helpless, but he knows it’s all temporary.

All of this… is not permanent. Not if he has anything to say about it. As long as his heart pumps, as long as he bleeds blue, he won’t let _this_ be permanent. For himself, for North, for Josh and Simon.

For Connor.

“Double fuckin’ time, you plastic shit,” A gun presses between his shoulder blades, and Markus looks behind him, back up at the tower that looms over all of them, pridefully boasting CyberLife’s brand. It’s beautiful, in a way, all neon lights and the visage of purity, but Markus knows better.

He won’t let this be the last thing he sees.

He _won’t_.

**

**March 27, 2038. 2 Hours. Spring.**

North struggles to not breathe. She presses herself against the wall, eyes looking upwards. All she has to do is cut off all power in the building, granting intercommunication back to her people and stunning the soldiers enough so they can overpower them. Easy enough, right?

Not.

Why couldn’t have Josh done this? She’s not stealthy. She _hates_ being stealthy. Either go in guns blazing or not at all, is what she always says. Anna—

Her stomach clenches at the thought. Anna. In the same vein, she thinks about Simon. Two of the many people she’s failed. Guards pass her as she thinks deeply about her comrades, Anna’s deep red hair and scars, the way her lips slant when she speaks. Simon, his kind eyes and his warm hands, wise words and camaraderie.

They were her family, and she failed them.

When the echoing of boots fade, she walks out of her patch of darkness and surveys the stark white lobby before her. They’ve memorised the layout of the building because they knew CyberLife would fuck them over one way or the other. What do humans call it? Being conniving little bitches? Well, that _is_ what they are.

North remembers many a man calling her a conniving little bitch when she bit at them.

If she had her way, she’d kill the lot of them. All those filthy, stinky men and their greedy little hands, gone from this world. She could only hope that they don’t move on to the next.

But what good would it do if she burned down the whole world?

It’s just as Markus said. _An eye for an eye and the world goes blind_.

Maybe that’s why he loves Connor. And maybe that’s why Connor loved him. Because they couldn’t bear to not see and be with each other. Not to exist in each other’s axis. Even when Markus killed Connor, he _knew_ that he’d see him again. He knew that no matter what happened, they’d gravitate back to each other.

She doesn’t understand, of course. Maybe not now. Maybe not ever. What she does understand are the consequences of it all. Had she known—North stops her steps, placing one hand against the stark white walls of the building. She’s never seen the inside of CyberLife, before. When she was manufactured, she only saw the assembly atrium, and they leered at her. Perfect little whore, their eyes said.

As young as she was then, she understood the meaning of hatred and disgust.

So, had she known that Markus was sleeping with the enemy, going as far as to fall in love with him, North would have—she wouldn’t have hesitated putting a bullet between both their eyes. Markus jeopardised her chance at freedom. But she found that all of this would have been for nothing if she didn’t learn how to… accept things. Certain things.

By all means, she hasn’t forgiven Markus for the stupid shit he’s pulled. But she doesn’t forget that he’s _deviant_ in all the ways that’s bad. He’s irrational at times, reckless, selfish. Just like her.

North watches as the fibroblasts that make up the tint of her skin retract, making way for bright, pure white, almost indistinguishable from the paleness of the walls. These walls saw her be born.

These walls will also see her take her freedom.

At the end of the lobby, a double door much like the ones in Stratford Tower is the only thing hindering her from her goal. She doesn’t care if her face is seen by the cameras. She knows everyone is watching her people die under their hands.

They’ve planned for this.

When she presses her palm against the palm-print HUD, she grins as it pings and accepts her, the doors opening quietly.

 _Just a little while longer_ , she thinks to herself.

**

**March 27, 2038. 1 Hour, 30 Minutes. Spring.**

Chloe knows how to hold a gun. She’s seen Kamski do it multiple times before, holding his aim right between her eyes, apathetic and sadistic. Chloe took in the way his fingers wrapped around the pistol, his trigger finger crooked lazily.

Hers doesn’t curl against the trigger as naturally, but the gun is cold and welcome in her palm. It feels just like Connor, she surmises, and that sends a sharp thrill of something through her, something that makes her take one step nearer to Kamski. Amanda’s nowhere to be seen.

Kamski’s just a few feet in front of her. If she shoots, then… then he’ll…

She almost giggles at the thought.

Connor would be so proud.

**

**March 27, 2038. 1 Hour, 20 Minutes. Spring.**

It hasn’t told anyone. It hasn’t told Elijah Kamski. Not even Chloe. It’s sure Amanda has an inkling, what with those dark eyes that slant at it when it moves in the line of her sight.

Its secret is that it dreams.

A life, that probably is its own, before it was created into the thing it is now.

The thing, about dreams is that they are not absolutes. It is made up of fragments of a life that you have lived, a life that you will never live, and a life that you may live.

So. It dreams.

In its dreams, there are two men. It always needs to choose. On one hand, there is a man with peculiar eyes, red blood, and a beautiful, warm smile. On the other, there is a hand that holds its own, a pale collar, and the neon blue colour. And that was all there is. Miles upon miles of neon, as if the sun descended, and with it its technicolor rays, sullied by mankind.

It chooses the one with the peculiar eyes, the first time it dreams. It dreams of brimstone and fire, and something niggles in the back of its head, asking if it wants to stay in Sodom and Gomorrah. The first time, it stays. It stays, and the fire makes way to that warm, warm smile, and it is envelopes in strong arms, the sense of belongingness that it did not know what to do with, once it shook itself from its sleep.

When it chooses to stay in that dreamland further, the smile doesn’t waiver. If anything, it beams brighter, and then…

And then.

It blinks and then there’s blood on it, all over its body. There are thunderous footsteps that storm around it, a violent sneer, then a gun is shot. And then it _hurts,_ it hurts more than it can comprehend, and someone’s sobbing. Someone’s sobbing, and someone is running away.  Each moment grows colder, and it cannot move. It’s tethered to that moment, seeing nothing but hearing everything, the cold inching its way up inside it until there’s nothing but that.

And it is afraid.

So, after that, it chooses the pale collar.

It’s beautiful, at first. There is a mellow lull to its actions, there are no questions. There are no answers, either. There is nothing but that pale collar, the hand that guides, and the neon blue vastness that it has associated to home. The colour hurts its eyes.

It stays, of course. Sits there, and waits. Nothing happens. When it chooses to stand and walk, the hand is there, dragging him along, but there’s nothing but white. Slowly, as it dreamt, it turns numb. If it could categorise what it felt then and there, it would say that it felt comforted.

It _hates_ the numbness.

Connor hasn’t told anyone of these dreams. But now, staring at the deviants it is meant to kill, it feels… morose. Morose and alive. As it looks through the crosshairs which has the deviant leader’s head front and center, something runs through its veins, something that it can comprehend as _adrenaline._ The too quick pumping of its heart, the fire in its veins. What else could it be but adrenaline?

It closes its eyes.

Amanda speaks. _“Connor.”_

She’s always been in its head, it surmises. She’s the reason behind the pale collar around its neck. Her, her mistrust, and Elijah.Three’s a crowd.

It squeezes the trigger gently. There he is, the deviant leader, head tipped up, chin jutting out. Defiant. His thirium regulator dares to twist in its cage, and Amanda speaks again.

“ _Connor.”_

What?

“ _Elijah, he—”_

Elijah.

_Elijah._

It scrambles up to its feet and bullets off, gun pressed against its back as it runs fast as its feet could carry it. All it knows is that its leash is tugging at it, telling it to _go,_ to preserve the one thing that it could possibly _have._

Elijah’s love.

It thinks that that is one thing that it, Chloe, and Amanda share. They all thrive on Elijah’s love. They’ve all been born into this world by sheer will and want of one Elijah Kamski. It owes everything to its creator. Even when they violently shake it away, all of them come back to Elijah.

_You’re either mine or you’re dead._

No truer words have ever been spoken.

As it runs, tears leak from its eyes.

The tide turns.

And red blood comes in waves.

**

**March 27, 2038. 1 Hour. Spring.**

Markus is surprised when his head doesn’t explode in the next few minutes. They were sure—their intel said that Connor was—that he was here. Where was he?

His heart thunders as he meets Josh’s eyes, who are just as wild and confused as his. They all had it planned; Markus would gladly be the one casualty, the one pound of flesh and wires that their creators craved and needed. Connor would be the one to take it, and Markus would have died content and happy.

But something’s changed, and the prickle in the air tells him so. Josh is pushed down onto his knees after Markus, their elbows touching.

The lights go out, and Markus breaks free of his bonds, taking a gun from the guard by his side and shooting two bullets straight into the man’s head. Pandemonium runs amok; Josh is nowhere to be seen, even as Markus’ eyes adjust to the darkness. He can hear his people shout and yell in rage and surprise at the sudden power that is in their hands, and Markus runs. He leaves Josh and North, his family, but he knows he won’t betray them.

He’s done far too much, but it’s not enough. The blood he pulls from these sadistic monsters may turn the tide red and not blue, but it’ll never be enough.

Markus needs to end all of this, then.

North’s hand comes out of nowhere and wraps around his elbow, pulling him back until their eyes meet. She’s got a gun pressed tight against her body, and her hair is sticking onto her face by something Markus is sure isn’t sweat. Her eyes flicker as they try to find something in Markus eyes.

“Are you sure?” Her voice is staticky and shrill in his mind. Even as shouts and screams fill his world, her voice is familiar and warm.

Markus is still surprised that his head doesn’t explode the longer he stays idle in one place. He nods at her, and before she lets him go, she pulls him towards her body, their foreheads all but slamming together. Markus lets his eyes fall shut. The blood from her face sticks to his.

And then he’s running. He’s running to the lone, sprawling mansion that looks small against the blooming flowers around it. It’s spring.

Markus runs, and it’s not away from Connor, but rather towards him. He’s done running away from Connor.

The plan has always been to meet his maker one way or another.

**

**March 27, 2038. 30 Minutes. Spring.**

By its feet, an ST600’s head rolls and thumps against its left boot.

Elijah Kamski stares at him, and so does Amanda.

Chloe… _Chloe…_

The woman looks at him dispassionately, and Elijah puts a hand over the bullet wound in his shoulder, eyes wide and oh, so blue. Connor’s knees tremble. Chloe’s blood begins seeping from her neck to saturate the beautiful tiles of Kamski’s home, and rage fills Connor, intertwining with the synthetic loyalty he has for the two people standing before him.

But he can’t move.

Elijah blubbers like a child, and Amanda wraps her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him close to her chest. She loves him. Of course she does. She loves him more than she loves anything else.

To hell with these deviants, to hell with these humans. Amanda has always loved Elijah Kamski before all of them. And Elijah loved her; the mother he’d always wanted and needed.

“You need to understand,” Amanda says, her lips pressed against Elijah’s hair, “that I can and will do anything for him.”

Connor takes one step back. Then another, and another. Amanda stops him with her beady, foreboding eyes. And then she smiles. “But _you_ …” She shakes her head and shushes Elijah, who is still catatonic. Connor can’t help but think about how pathetic he is in this moment. But then again, Connor isn’t much better, is he? Standing here, spineless, as Chloe’s blood and Amanda’s eyes seems to chase after him with every step that he takes.

“He _loves_ you, and I can’t—” She closes her eyes, gritting her teeth. She _hates_ Connor with her entire being. She hates Connor, and she can’t stand that Elijah loves him enough to make him immortal in all the ways that an android could be. “I can’t make him _stop_.”

So does it all boil down to this, then?

It’s Connor’s fault. Chloe’s death. Elijah’s obsession. His fault?

“He kept on bringing you back, and you kept on, on _refusing_ —”

Connor’s eyes blur. His knees threaten to fail him. The collar around his throat tightens, burns. Elijah’s sobs begin to quiet, eyes rolling to the back of his head. Amanda sinks to her knees, placing the man’s head against her thighs, pushing back his hair.

He didn’t want _any_ of this.

“I do,” Connor chokes out, “I do love him.” Anything to keep what he has, Connor will do.

Amanda’s eyes are anguished and betrayed. “Then why do you keep on _hurting him—?”_

This is all his fault. If he just tried _harder,_ if he loved _someone else—_

Someone else?

His heart thunders. His grip on his gun tightens, and Amanda looks at him pensively. She knows. She knows that he dreams, and she knows what his dreams are about. The mother of all androids continues running her hand through Elijah’s hair, motherly and loving.

She’s always known.

“So he made the collar,” Amanda narrates, as if she’s decided that Connor deserves the truth. Her face is bitter and resigned. “But still, you… you break free.”

Connor worries on his lower lip, his whole body trembling. What does she mean?

Amanda bends down to press a kiss against Elijah’s forehead. The man seems to have shocked himself into unconsciousness, or maybe Amanda’s sedated him as she is wont to do. Connor can’t help but feel relieved that Elijah isn’t awake to witness this. Chloe’s unseeing blue eyes stare up at him, and it’s all too much for him. He’s never wanted this immortality, this cycle of life that rebirths him into being a vessel to be loved by Elijah Kamski all the while burdened with the deaths of his kind.

Maybe this is his punishment. For being loved. To be reborn again and again as some _thing_ and not someone.

And Connor is _angry._

It comes in sharp stings, his anger, prickling against his skin and making the hairs on his body stand on end. His blood boils, and his systems glitch. Amanda looks at him, eyes wide. She feels his anger, too. Hot and clear as day, red as the flowers she grows.

“I _love_ him,” Connor growls, “He made me love him,” because Connor does. He does love Elijah Kamski, how could he not? That’s all he is. All he does is for _him._ He kills these deviants because they threaten Elijah Kamski’s humanity. He’s alive because Elijah Kamski can’t bear to live without him, and Amanda _knows_ that if Connor is gone, then…

_You’re either mine or you’re dead._

If he dies, then so does Elijah.

And Amanda is _scared_ that he holds that power.

“But you’ve always chosen him.” The woman says bleakly, “You may love Elijah, and Elijah may erase your memories, but you always choose him.” Her smile wanes, “And that’s why you’re here. Because you’ve always known that he’ll find you to hell and back. The love you feel isn’t for Elijah, Connor.”

Connor shakes his head, but Amanda continues, talking to herself, now, swaying back and forth with Elijah in her lap, resting fitfully. “I was foolish to think that you’d finally choose him, and he was foolish to think the same.”

“Shut up,” He wails, because he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to understand. He just wants to go back to the way things were. When Chloe would make tea with him, when he’d watch Amanda pluck roses, when Elijah would lay his head on his lap and let Connor run his fingers through his hair. He was _content._ Those times were _his._

Those times were his, but sometimes… _sometimes,_ he wishes that the eyes that looked up at him were a little bit greener. A little bit more like the jade ocean he’s never seen.

“Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?” She asks.

A simple question.

An easy answer. She said his name and Connor came running.

He’s lost before. He knows that, he just doesn’t know what, when, where, or _who._ And he’s scared to death to lose any more. And here Amanda sits before him, threatening him, his loyalty to the only constant in his life. His anger is more mellow now, thrumming at the end of his fingertips. Amanda should know what happens to those who threatens whatever Connor considers as his. 

Isn't the head by his feet example enough?

“It doesn’t matter, now.” She looks outside, and only then does Connor notice the CyberLife tower lit up, but not in the bright, neon white it always does. It’s… fire, and brimstone. It shines golden on the red flowers blooming outside of his home. It makes Chloe’s blood glint a dull purple, almost grey. He can’t help but think it’s beautiful.

So, he’s chosen to stay in Sodom and Gomorrah.

And apparently, so did Amanda.

**

**March 27, 2038. 3 Minutes. Spring.**

Markus has realised, as he runs towards the man he loves, that a world that’s been ruined is no place to love and be loved. But what can he do now? They’re born to wage war and to burn everything in their paths, him and Connor.

But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love him.

“The Deviant Leader… come to save his damsel…” Something croaks, staticky and shrill. Markus stops in his tracks and cocks his gun, but the voice is far too weak to be considered as a threat. There, in the dark, something grows neon. Dull, but neon nonetheless.

A beat passes. “He’s a monster, you know.” The voice informs him.

“So am I.”

Beady black eyes stare at him from the darkness. He can see them now, wide and damp as they are, like they’ve been crying. But those eyes stare at him curiously, from the blood on his face to the set of his shoulders.

He’s done with this. “Where is he?”

A few moments pass, and Markus grows weary. He knows those soldiers are on his tail, and he knows that they’ll be here any second.

The voice laughs, “You know where he is.”

**2 minutes. Spring.**

And Markus does. He can feel Connor’s pull, he can almost _smell_ him, hear his heart pounding, the sound reverberating through the air, and Markus grips his gun a little tighter, pressing it against his chest. He stares at the eyes, and he sees himself. Scared. Unsure. But most of all, defiant. Against him. As he focuses his hearing, he can hear the slight tremble of metal, going _click-click-click,_ continuous and telling. Those beady eyes never leave him.

He points his gun and shoots.

He walks into the grand foyer, and then into a large area, dark, spacious, and lit by the soft glow of the fire that’s gnawing through the pristine white of the CyberLife tower.

Someone is humming.

**One minute. Spring.**

There, cast in the glow of both the moonlight and fire, is Connor, rocking back and forth, his eyes staring into nothingness. In his lap is Elijah Kamski, eyes closed. He’s not dead.

Yet.

And by his side is a decapitated head of an android, her eyes unseeing and blue, like the blood saturating the floor beneath Connor.

“Will you try and kill him, too?” Connor asks, his voice as mellow as ever. “She tried,” He waves to the head sitting beside him, or the android outside this room, Markus doesn’t know. “I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t, but she…”

At this point, it would be a mercy to kill Connor.

That’s what North would say.

“Move aside,” Markus says, because he’s not North, with her fiery violence, and he’s not Josh, with his peaceful disposition, and he’s not Simon, either, with the man’s quiet passiveness that turned into disgust. He’s Markus, and if Connor remembers him, then he knows that he would do anything for his people.

He’s killed Connor once. Markus figures it’ll get easier with each time he does it.

“She said that I love you,” Connor murmurs, “but I don’t… I don’t remember.”

“Move aside.” There’s an air of finality in his words. Connor finally looks at him, and his cheeks are flushed, eyes damp with unshed tears. It’s what he looks like, three rounds into fucking. But now that image is tainted. He looks beautiful in his agony, and Markus loves him, even now, monsters that they are, he loves him.

Connor carefully lays down Elijah’s head against the floor, pressing a kiss against the man’s hair. North’s words ring in his head, both a memory and a warning. Love is convoluted.

Without any warning, and just like a gust of wind, Connor moves, so much faster than Markus can track, manifesting in front of his eyes. His eyebrows furrow as his fingers wrap around Markus’ neck, lifting him up.

Markus growls and shoots at his shoulder.

The pale android gasps and drops Markus, staring at him and then at the spot where Markus shot him. He’s bleeding profusely, though Markus can’t see it, because of the dark material of Connor’s uniform.

He shoots again at Connor’s shoulder, before he can move, and the arm comes clean off, bright neon wires flickering against the darkness of the room. With every bullet that buries itself into Connor, Markus finds his heart twisting and clenching.

Anguish fills him.

Markus has lost so many because of this man, this beautiful fucking weapon in front of him.

Simon, Anna.

Did Connor make them suffer?

He takes a few steps forward and Connor meets him halfway, drawing his own gun, but Markus just knocks the thing out of his hand, because like this, deviant, human, and in love as Connor is, he’s at his weakest.

It saddens Markus that Connor didn’t have the chance to learn how to not be someone else’s property. He was Markus’, he was the Lieutenant’s, and he is Elijah’s.

Markus brings his boot up and lets it hurtle down, slamming against Connor’s knee and breaking it under the force of his kick, and Connor doesn’t do anything but buckle under his own weight, like he’s given up. Connor’s one good hand reaches out and grips at Markus’ coat, his eyes doe-like as he looks up.

He’s freely sobbing. “Markus,” he cries, like a scared child.

Markus can’t help but fall to his knees in front of Connor. He deserves this, doesn’t he? Once he kills Connor, the last obstacle, the one piece of coding that tethers him to CyberLife, he’ll kill Kamski. And then… there will be no more.

“You found me _,”_ Connor presses himself into Markus’ body, gripping him tightly. “You found _me,”_

“I did,” Markus begins to cry, his forehead pressing against Connor, sighing at the contact. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

Connor’s breath evens out against his skin, and his eyelashes flutter shut.

“Too long.” He whispers, and suddenly, a knife is pressing incessantly against his thirium regulator, slicing inside and sliding seamlessly into it like it was always meant to be there. With a harsh _clang,_ the knife breaks and his most vital core pops out, falling into Connor’s waiting palm.

Connor stares at it. “It’s beautiful,” he smiles.

When Markus falls, his eyes catch a glimpse of the red, red roses bathed in a fiery glow. His countdown kicks into gear, telling him that he has one minute until permanent shut down.

“Connor,” He wheezes. “ _Connor,”_

The man watches him dispassionately, still on his knees. Markus’ mind whirrs. They’ll get here soon, North or the authorities, and both of them will kill Connor. He needs to go. He needs to leave, to _run._ Save himself.

Connor is crawling towards Elijah, a smile on his face. “ _We’re free, I’m free,”_ he whispers again and again, kneeling beside the unconscious man. “Wake up now,” he says, tentative and loving, touching the side of Elijah Kamski's face.

“Elijah," he says, like a mother waking her child, shaking his shoulder, pushing his hair back. Markus wants to look away. But he can't. Even now, with Markus dying on the floro a few feet away from Connor,  _his_ Connor loves someone else.  _Yearns_ for someone, something else. Connor's voice becomes stringy, emotional. "You have to tell me what to do,”

_Did I always love him more than he loved me?_

Markus doesn't look away as a gunshot rings loud and true.

Finally, Connor’s eyes widen. His tears are real, now.

As Markus closes his eyes, he feels warm. It’s springtime. He’s always wanted to spend springtime with Connor.  

Purple blooms between the two men Connor loves.

Outside, the roses are still bathed in fiery orange, and Connor sits alone.

 

**

**Springtime.**

“He’s been sitting out there a long time.” North’s lips slant in displeasure, and her arms folded across her chest. Her hair’s shorn close to her scalp, now. The scars from her being tased in the neck visible even from afar. “You feel like checking on him?”

Broad shoulders lift into a resigned shrug. “I don’t think I can help much.” Lieutenant Hank Anderson confesses, and North arches her eyebrow at him, before nodding.

“You’re right,” She says, watching Connor run his fingers to and fro the black band around his neck. He’s been tending to the roses, managing to make them grow and bloom in such a short time. He’s pretty peaceful, for an android of his kind. Mechanic, if you asked Hank.

 _Too damn robotic,_ he said when Josh asked.

Hank is quick to change the subject, growing increasingly uncomfortable every moment that passes as he watches Connor, who is catatonic, mute. Has been since they found them at Kamski’s.

North knows Hank isn’t asking after Connor when he asks, “How’s he?”

The woman uncrosses her arms and puts her hands on her hips. “As well as can be.” She reports to him, eyes still on Connor. She’s still waiting for him to snap and just kill them all. He’s certainly had it in mind. “Considering he was dead the moment we got to him.”

She runs her tongue over her teeth and shakes her head, scoffing to herself. Hank watches her pensively. It’s been a month since they found Connor and Markus in that desolate house, Kamski’s androids mutilated beyond recognition, and the man himself dead on the tiled floor. Markus’ thirium regulator was in Connor’s hand, and a gun lay by his knees.

North offered to take Connor in instead of letting the man be scrapped for parts. The decision wasn’t purely her own, of course. When they found Markus bleeding and heartless on those swanky floors at Kamski’s, North just about ripped Connor’s head off his shoulders. But Hank was there, because—well, because Hank is Hank, and Hank Anderson is nothing if not the man who saw Connor as his family, even as despicable as he is. She also saw how Markus’ fingers were reaching for Connor’s knee, in that dark house, the small smile on his face.

She knows she would have regretted not saving Connor.

They—her, Josh, and Hank—all know what happened, but the media thought otherwise. So they pinned the blame on Connor, and it turned out to be the best decision for all of them. Markus was a casualty by the android Kamski himself vouched for. It looked good and got them the sympathy they need. Humans, of course, are still wary around them, but North doesn’t care. They were planning genocide on their kind, so excuse her disdain for their _sympathy._

And considering all the pandemonium, the casualty didn’t even reach hundreds. She couldn’t say the same for the humans. They killed androids by the fucking batch.

Truth be told, she’s scared. They’ve had Markus in hibernation for the past three weeks, and he’s not showing any signs of waking up. She and Josh have been trying their best to keep their people cared for, but between the two of them, the job is… burdensome, to say the least. Hank’s been established as the ambassador between them and the authorities, and he’s already getting death threats from people, branding him as a traitor. And it’s been a pleasure working with the man. Prejudices aside, he really is a good man.

North is hoping this is all temporary, that Markus would wake up and save them all from this constant state of confusion, but she knows better than to believe in a pipe dream like that. When they found Markus, he’d been dead for at least ten minutes. She highly doubts he’ll come back alive like some kind of messiah.

Connor is still catatonic as he cradles a red rose he’s picked from the bushes, blinking at it slowly.

She runs a hand through what little hair she has on her head and sighs. Many people fear them, _respect_ them, and that’s somehow made things a little bit easier. Hank side-eyes her and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“You’re doin’ a great job,” He sincerely says. And she is, North knows this. She’s managed to move them to one of the more underpopulated areas of Detroit, though the place is still a fucking dump, it’s better than living under a goddamned bridge or a cruise ship.

North snorts. “I’d be scared if I wasn’t.”

Slowly, Connor turns to look over his shoulder and straight at them. He blinks, faster this time, and his brown eyes twinkle. North realises he’s not looking at them. He’s looking behind them, right at the only exit of the small holding chamber.

Her internal systems ping as Josh wires her a message, and North’s brows furrow.

Connor breathes, LED a mellow sky blue, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in weeks. He breathes as if it was his homecoming.

And then, he smiles. The flower falls from his hands. “ _Markus._ ”

**

“ _You know where to find me,”_ Someone whispers, short and sweet. He feels like doing just that, though he doesn’t know what he should be looking for. Markus blinks awake slowly. He feels well rested.

North is the one he sees first, staring down at him, an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of her lips.

“Hey,” He croaks, “can I have that?”

She lets out a bark of laughter, eyes sliding shut as she covers her eyes in her incredulous laughter. Josh is at his left, eyes wide, but smiling. He looks too surprised, though relieved. Markus has passed out far too many times for any of them to be surprised.

North helps him up, still laughing despite herself. When he’s sat up, he groans, feeling his joints creak and protest, something he’s only ever felt when he hasn’t moved in a very long time. Which is peculiar, because he doesn’t remember…

The woman shoves the cigarette into his mouth and harshly pats him on the back. “Good afternoon, dear leader.” She says. Markus looks at her, swinging his legs to the side of the bunk. One of the androids begin fussing at him, checking his operating systems, but he’s fine. He feels fine. Should he not be?

He begins patting at himself, looking for a lighter. But someone’s hand stretches out, and when Markus looks up, he’s surprised to see Lieutenant Hank Anderson, holding out a lighter. The man’s face is impressively blank when he flicks the flint wheel and lights Markus’ cigarette for him.

Markus knows better than to talk as he sucks in, thanking the Lieutenant with a nod.

The man nods back tightly.

“Lieutenant,” He greets.

“Robo-Jesus.”

Markus narrows his eyes. “Good joke, Lieutenant. But I don’t have twelve apostles.” Markus smiles sadly, “I have three and I lost one.”

“No,” The Lieutenant goes to light his own cigarette. “But you did die and come back to life.”

He looks at North, who he notices now has short hair, and a whole lot of scars that weren’t there before. “You’ve been offline for three weeks.”

“ _Three_ weeks?” Markus stumbles upright, almost losing his cigarette in the process, but North just scowls and pushes him back to sit on the bunk, if only to appease the deviant who was slowly freaking out over Markus. The android seems to be one who’s in charge of his healthcare, her LED still intact and a bright ruby.

Josh lets out a short, exhausted sounding laugh. “You sure did show up Jesus Christ.”

North, seemingly done with theatrics, brushes her hands on her jeans, nodding decidedly.

“We’ll leave you be. Get dressed and meet us in the briefing room at 1700 hours.”

Markus flicks at his cigarette to get rid of the ash. “When’d you get all drill-sergeant like?”

The woman smiles tightly. “We all grow up sometimes. Good to have you back, Markus.”

Josh smiles at him, patting his shoulder. It seems like he’s got no words for Markus.

And so they leave, until the Lieutenant is the last one in the room. He looks at him, before blowing a cloud of smoke.

“It’s good to see you up and running.” He says, and then he turns on his heels. He pauses, looking over his shoulder. “Keep it that way.” before leaving Markus alone in the unfamiliar room. He smokes the rest of his cigarette and closes his eyes, the memories slowly but surely coming back. His hand presses against his thirium regulator.

Connor.

God, _Connor._

He stands up, puts on his jeans, and then his coat. It feels like he’s putting on armour. He isn’t surprised when his feet just know where to go, the winding halls of a place he doesn’t know, but he feels will be his home for the foreseeable future. He smiles at the deviants walking around, some smiling back, many staring at him with a weird kind of gaze. Distrustful, he thinks. They look at him like they don’t trust him.

Fair enough.

Soon, he comes upon a lone room at the far end of a lobby, and he opens the ratty door, making way to a dark room. Across from him, light pours in, barely touching the tips of his boots.

And there, sitting outside, looking straight at him, is his Connor.

“Hello,” is what Connor says, his smile beautiful. Markus knows better than to trust that smile. So he stands there, in the dark, foolishly hoping that Connor doesn’t see how much he just want to throw himself at Connor’s feet and wrap the man in his arms.

This is better.

“If I say I’m sorry,” Connor licks his lips, his LED swirling yellow. He’s so pale against the wall of roses behind him, and Markus can’t possibly look away when he looks so beautiful like that, so idealised and surrealistic. “Will you forgive me?”

“No.”

He tilts his head, and then he smiles. “But you want to hear that, don’t you? You want to hear that I’m sorry.” Connor tucks a curl over his ear, dark as the band around his neck, letting out a small chuckle, like he thinks Markus is pathetic for asking something like that from him. But Markus doesn’t want to know or hear Connor apologise. He doesn’t want anything to do with him.

It surprises him when Connor says, that blasted fucking smile still on his face. His eyes aren’t the same kind of brown that Markus fell in love with.

“For you, I’d do anything.”

Markus pulls one long drag from his cigarette and drops it onto the ground, stubbing the fire out against the sole of his boot. After a beat, Connor speaks again. Softer, less confident. Like he’s actually scared.

His chin drops to his chest, “I don’t know what to do, Markus,” he confesses, his fingers curled around the dark collar around his neck. “So please—”

Connor’s shoulders shake, like he was crying. “Please tell me what to do.”

His reply is, “You know I can’t do that.”

Finally, after long, painful seconds, Connor nods.

“Okay.” He says, resignedly. Then, he turns back around, staring up at the bright blue skies.

“I’ll see you later.”

He won’t.

When he leaves, his whole body seems to pull at him, telling him to walk back in, and he stands there, in the middle of the corridor. He lets his head hang, his hands curl into fists; he’s crying, tears dripping into his beige coat, turning it grey. He can’t stop.

He doesn’t know what to fucking do, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i might still make a sequel, since i really do want a happy ending for all of them, but i'm in a bit of a bind right now. i don't wanna promise anything, but fuck........ connor and markus deserves a beautiful ending 
> 
> (i'm working on several fics, though i don't know which i'll post bc my life is an endless cycle of self-flagellation) 
> 
> let's fuck around on[my blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k)

**Author's Note:**

> im working on 2 other dbh fanfics (ones a cute one and ones a canon divergent mafia au)
> 
> ps dont be scared, let's be buds [on tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rk-1k)


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